Forgive Southern Californians if they've been a little confused about why their iPhones say they're in Boulder -- while standing next to the beach.

For the past few days, the Apple phones' GPS app devices have been off by 1,046 miles and it's unclear if anyone at the company is trying to fix the glitch.

Those with iPhones in Torrance and Rancho Palos Verdes -- just outside of Los Angeles -- have noticed that lately their devices say they're standing outside of Norm's Plumbing and Heating, just north of the Twenty Ninth Street mall.

"We're just a small plumbing shop over here," said Ernie, who answered the phone at Norm's. "I have no idea why that would be."

The GPS systems, which use Google Maps and other applications to obtain driving directions, should quickly show the user's exact location.

But something's amiss, and whoever knows why isn't talking.

"For about the past week now, my standard 3GS map app has been erroneously showing me as being located in Boulder, CO (I've never left L.A.)," Ok3wire wrote on a Mac Forum on the Internet. "Why is this happening?"

A spokeswoman at AT&T, the wireless telephone service with every iPhone account, said the problem was an issue for Apple, the phone and app manufacturer.

The Apple media relations office in Cupertino did not respond to a telephone call and e-mail.

On Internet Mac forums, plenty of people are talking about it. Some offer ideas to fix it -- they don't work -- and some offer humor.

"This is because there is no difference between Boulder, Colo., and California," SpaceKitty wrote. "The iPhone is smart enough to know this and so it picks the lesser evil of the two and places you there."

Thursday marked the beginning of Boulder Fiber Week, the city's effort to influence Google to choose it for a fiber-optic network that will offer residential Internet speeds of 1 gigabit per second. The speed is about 100 times faster than most Americans use.

Boulder has a Facebook fan page and a Web site, boulderfiber.com, to promote the city.

"Certainly, Boulder is, in our opinion, the best place to test it," said city spokesman Patrick von Keyserling.

He discounted the suggestion that anyone in Boulder was part of a conspiracy to put Southern California residents in Boulder to bring attention to the city's effort to wow Google.

"I think what's probably happening is Boulder is becoming the center for the high-tech community," von Keyserling said.

Camera Staff Writer Ryan Huff contributed to this report.