I was surprised as well, I do believe that default GPS should work regardless. However, I tried 3 different spots and could not get a single location after minutes of trying.
I'm not an Android developer, but could it be that applications are just expecting that API? It would make sense for Google to want to route location requests through what's usually their service...
There are two sets of APIs - one provided by Android AOSP where you choose whether you use GPS, network location or other provider and handle it manually.
And then there's a more powerful version provided by Google Services, which automatically fuses all providers and talks to Google servers. Most apps these days opt for the Fused provider, since it's easier to use and automatically handles getting a reliable location in pretty much any environment. It's not available on "Google-free" phones though, since it depends on Google's infrastructure.
GPS does work, but sometimes it takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to lock onto your position. It doesn't bother me now, but at times it's useful to have faster location lock, in which case UnifiedNLP + a few location providers does the trick.
I wonder if somehow UnifiedNLP is providing the almanac?
GPS is a standalone system but it doesn't have a lot of spare bandwidth for the metadata so the alamanac you need frequently updated to use it takes quite a long time to receive over GPS itself whereas you can download it very fast over even a mediocre GSM signal.
Taking a few minutes, especially the first time you use it in a day for example, sounds like the time needed to receive the almanac. But I could be wrong.
> Doesn't the GPS radio work without google play services?
It does, but you'll have very poor reception unless you have a nice line of sight to the sky - large cities and forests are typically the most problematic.
I'm not an Android developer, but could it be that applications are just expecting that API? It would make sense for Google to want to route location requests through what's usually their service...