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iPhone XS and XS Max Users Are Reporting Poor Cell and Wi-Fi Reception (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the holding-it-wrong dept.

Some users who upgraded to an iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max over the weekend have reported poor cell and Wi-Fi reception and noticeably slower speeds when comparing their new phones to their older models. The Verge: According to users on Apple's support forum, MacRumors forums, and Reddit, the issue appears to be widespread across the country and not limited to any specific carrier. It's a frustrating issue, especially considering that the iPhone XS is supposed to have significantly faster data speeds on Wi-Fi and LTE compared to the iPhone X, according to data tests conducted by SpeedSmart. There's even a new antenna line running along the bottom of the phone as discovered by a recent iFixit teardown, which should have helped with reception. Additionally, folks at r/Apple, the most popular subreddit for iPhone and other Apple related discussions on the site, have corroborated the claims.

22 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Apple support: by Pubstar · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're holding it wrong

    1. Re: Apple support: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      These people had an iPhone with a superior Qualcomm modem before. Now they have a cheaper one from Intel. Enjoy

    2. Re: Apple support: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's almost certainly this. If you've never used a phone with an Intel modem you'd be amazed at how bad they are. Anything below two bars might as well be "no signal" because the Intel modem flat-out can't decipher anything that weak. Speed starts dropping precipitously as you move away from the tower. Where a Qualcomm modem might be operating at 90% speed, an Intel modem will have already dropped to 50%. It's really quite impressive how bad they are.

      And because Apple is mad at Qualcomm because Qualcomm doesn't like it when Apple steals their technology, iPhone users are stuck with broken Intel modems.

    3. Re:Apple support: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're holding it wrong

      You are *buying* it wrong.

    4. Re: Apple support: by jezwel · · Score: 5, Informative

      These people had an iPhone with a superior Qualcomm modem before. Now they have a cheaper one from Intel. Enjoy,

      It's almost certainly this.

      https://www.wiwavelength.com/2...

      Apple's decision to forgo Qualcomm this year and source all cellular modems from Intel is not responsible for the RF power output limitations in the new iPhone models. The cellular baseband modem is separate from and well upstream of the amplifiers that generate the conducted power and antennas that generate the radiated power being measured in lab testing.
      ...where is all that power going? Where is it being diminished? The answer lies in antenna gain.
      Indeed, deeper analysis of the FCC OET authorization filings shows the underwhelming EIRP figures to be almost entirely products of negative antenna gain.

  2. Can confirm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can confirm this. I have an iPhone Xs. Used to never have signal problems standing outside when near the wall where the router is.

    I now get no signal outside and severely diminished signal if I leave the room with the router. Anything in the way of the router kills the top of three bars of wifi strength. Cellular data will routinely drop out where I'll just stop receiving anything for a bit until I reboot the phone. I have no idea how much of this is iOS 12 (since it comes with the Xs) and how much is just bad design with the Xs. But so far, for a $1000 phone, I'm really unimpressed.

    1. Re:Can confirm by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

      I'd lean toward saying it's the new phone model then; I have a 6s with iOS12 and no issues; also it's been rock stable ever since I bought it, through several OS upgrades. I might just stick with it a while longer, though I would like a bigger screen.

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    2. Re:Can confirm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ironically I used to.

      Apple finally discontinued them last year (I think) after having not updated their wifi access point since 2012. I remember when my Time Capsule died and I decided to replace it with a newer one and discovering I still had the newest one because Apple hadn't bothered updating it in five years.

      The hilarious thing is that with Time Capsule dead, the "wifi backup" feature that macOS still has is effectively useless. It only works on HFS+ disks, and only if they're shared using AFP. (AFP cannot be used to share APFS disks.) Apparently it might support an APFS disk shared via SMB, but if you go to the article on setting that up, it tells you that is also deprecated and no longer being updated. (And the limits on that are also kind of hilarious in that I think it requires SMBv3 with special Apple extensions.)

      I guess the TLDR here is that Apple is currently a huge mess, even within their own ecosystem.

  3. Not what I'd call an upgrade. by techno-vampire · · Score: 2

    If the new iPhones are getting poorer reception and slower downloads than the old ones did in the same location, I'd have to call it a very expensive downgrade, not an upgrade.

    --
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    1. Re:Not what I'd call an upgrade. by Tough+Love · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can totally fix this just by exchanging your Apple iPhone for an Android iPhone.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  4. Apple quality control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple is too busy making custom emojis to care about properly testing their phones. Remember this is a trillion dollar company.

    1. Re:Apple quality control by magarity · · Score: 2

      Apple is too busy making custom emojis to care about properly testing their phones.

      In all seriousness how does noticeably bad reception make it past QA? And then there's the recurring v.something "causes the battery to run out extra fast" thing that also no one in the testing department ever notices. Does Apple onshore keep forgetting to put items like this in the checklist for offshore QA who never does a thing except exactly what they're told?

  5. Only affects a subset. by Shouldbeworking · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is only important if you plan to use the wireless connectivity functionality of the devices.

  6. Re:Brace yourselves... by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "You're Holding it WRONG!" comments in 3, 2, 1

    Right, but in their defense, Apple kinda deserves it.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  7. Lennart response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Works on my phone. Bug report closed.

  8. Re:time to android by alvinrod · · Score: 2

    Why not just keep using the 6S? It still gets the latest updates and will continue to for some time. If you're not using it for anything particularly taxing, it would be kind of foolish to buy a new device to replace something that works fine. It's only 3 years old at this, and should probably last another 3 without issue.

  9. I blame iOS 12 by phalse+phace · · Score: 2

    Some users who upgraded to an iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max over the weekend have reported poor cell and Wi-Fi reception and noticeably slower speeds when comparing their new phones to their older models.

    I blame iOS 12. I upgraded an iPhone 6S from iOS 11.4.1 to iOS 12 and noticed that Wi-Fi connection speed and reception are worse now.

    At the office, I cannot get very good cell reception so I rely on Wi-Fi. When I arrive at the office, I turn on the iPhone's Wi-Fi and then connect to the Wi-Fi network. The time it takes to establish a connect to the network is much slower, and the range appears to be shorter too. Locations where I once was able to receive a solid signal are now dead spots.

  10. "Upgraded" by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Some users who upgraded to an iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max over the weekend have reported poor cell and Wi-Fi reception and noticeably slower speeds when comparing their new phones to their older models."

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  11. For those that don't get the joke... by Pollux · · Score: 4, Informative

    Eight years ago, when Apple debuted the iPhone 4, they re-engineered the antenna, making it into a stainless steel band running around the edge of the phone. But the antenna was actually two separate antennas, with a very narrow gap between them. If anything, including your hand, created enough of a conducting pathway between the two separate antennas, reception and 3G data quality reduced terribly. As this Anandtech article explained, "Anything conductive which bridges the gap in the bottom left couples the antennas together, detuning the precisely engineered antennas. It's a problem of impedance matching with the body as an antenna, and the additional antenna that becomes part of the equation when you touch the bottom left.

    And so, when asked about the problem, Steve Jobs famously said, "Just avoid holding it in that way."

    1. Re:For those that don't get the joke... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Also worth mentioning the "solutions" that Apple offered for the iPhone 4 antenna problems.

      First was to offer everyone a rubber band to wrap around the phone to prevent shorting the antennas out.

      Second was to adjust the signal strength display on screen to give more bars, making people think that their phones had better signal than they actually did.

      --
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  12. Technical analysis of new antenna shortcomings by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/iphone-xs-and-xs-max-mostly-fail-to.html
    https://www.wiwavelength.com/2018/09/antennagate-reduxs-if-so-what-can-apple.html

  13. Re:Confirmed by stealth_finger · · Score: 2

    I can confirm this has been my experience with one. Also that I was overcharged for minimal improvements and still pissed there's no headphone jack from the company "brave" enough to screw their customers repeatedly. And lack of fingerprint reader is seriously annoying.

    So why did you buy one?

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