iPhone 18 pro max cellular issues

So these phones are 100% defective. Apple allowing a carrier to force returns or non-use is not excusable. 2. ATT is over 24 hour wait just to start the return process. Looks like they are running the clock out.

My wife and I swapped from iPhone 15 Pro Max to 18 PM a few days ago, we have had constant issues with location and GPS issues. I drive a lot for work and use Apple Maps daily. I've had several instances already where I make a turn on any given street and the map freezes.

Sharing locations between us, or with other people we previously shared locations with has been hit or miss, sharing for a while then suddenly disappearing.

iMessage seems to drop out randomly.

I also make a lot of calls daily for work and as far as I have noticed I haven't had call drop issues or go into SOS mode unexpectedly. Actually had slightly better service today where I usually don't, but maps issues still remain.

I ran the most recent update, had AT&T do their network reset, I've yet to be able to test it since then.

For some reason this was the least smooth transition to a new iPhone I've had in the post tethered times.

It is almost impossible to think that this outage has been ongoing for 1 week now. Now home, I was traveling all week on business without the ability to make or receive phone calls/text messages, get map directions, use iMessage or FaceTime.......unless I went and found public or paid Wi-Fi. I too have talked with AT&T customer support (whose solution of forcing the phone down to LTE only had no favorable impact), visited an Apple Store Genius Bar (whose tech team had no knowledge of the provisioning problem (aka outage) and said it is not logged in their knowledge base) and again reengaging AT&T Support today (Saturday 09/26) the problem still persists and there is no timeline for resolution. That is beyond unacceptable for some of Apple and AT&T's best customers; this is a full DEFCON 1 problem and there appears to be little weight behind delivering a solution with due urgency.

I’m on my second IPhone 18 Pro Max and the same issue occurred again. I got it replace 5 days after the phone came out. Then this morning, the phone is stuck in SOS mode again. This is ridiculous. I did the new update and it actually made it worse.

I don’t know what version you have but for me the New C2 modem version that comes with iOS update 27.0.1 - causes several new bugs with device connections and it is unstable on internet connectivity - both over 5G and WiFi - issues I didn't remember in the previous version, 1.01.06. Another new bug - I’m experiencing some applications crashing. 

Same issue here. I was able to get a new iPhone at the Apple store today. They verified this phone is connecting properly. It’s been a few hours and seems ok. Fingers crossed this fixes it!

its not an att issue, my wife is on the same plan as me and got the same exact phone 1 day earlier than me and has zero issues

MidwestMan wrote:

Alright I appreciate it. I kind of figured that what the store was trying to do. They didn’t seem very knowledgeable about anything regarding the issue to be honest. I’ll report back tomorrow after I call them

At the store, the person you may have spoken with could have sold shoes the week before. They are there to sell you a phone/accessories and/or cellular service. Elevate your issue with someone who has the ability to resolve it. Please come back after you've had some real technical support and let us know the outcome.

I had att submit a ticket and would hear back or have answer within 48 hours. Supposedly another person that came into att store with same issue waited 48 hours and att told her another 48 hours to resolve. Sounds like they don’t know how to fix any of this and we’re screwed without signal or answers!

Same here. Tried returning the phone to Best Buy and they won't take it back without a $45 restocking fee.

Ridiculous that AT&T is having this happen 2 years in a row. Do they not learn from their mistakes? 🤬

Sprinkles16 wrote:

My phone has been on SOS all morning. ATT said it was a bug the new iphones are experiencing. They don't have an exact time on when it'd be fixed but there estimating between 24-72 hrs.

I don't get this bug suggestion. We have iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, BOTH on AT&T, BOTH with no issues whatsoever making or receiving phone calls.

Yeah I also spent three hours troubleshooting in and out of sos mode got a new esim I reset the network settings quite literally did every possible troubleshoot and still can’t make calls without wifi it seems my data works when there is a 5G+ connection but it’s very temporary and anytime I toggle to lte service I get nothing

debfife wrote:

EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING AND FRUSTRATING

Come on Apple—— DO BETTER

Hello~ Please remember you are screaming in all caps at your fellow forum members. Apple isn’t here in the context that you mean.

~Katana-San~

So the issue was reported on September 19th and it's now September 23rd with no resolution. I have no service whatsoever. At first I could at least receive texts and maybe calls over WIFI but AT&T messed my phone up even more and now I only have SOS. When are they going to fix this? I only ordered the 18 because I didn't have a phone, it broke. I gave the replacement I borrowed from a friend back so this is pretty irritating.