Q: WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

Apple has a unique way of connecting with people on an affective (feelings) level and has built a loyal following. Several years ago I spent a good deal of money on Apple products after becoming frustrated with Windows - only to find my frustration became worse due to connection problems with an imac and later with an Air. I did everything I could think of and tried all the suggestions people gave to no avail. I found after research I was not alone with these problems and I for one voted with my feet. I cannot tollerate a product that does not function as designed. Despite this I still love what Apple stands for and wish I could support them - but know now I can no longer depend on them.

Sounds very different from the earlier issues. If you scan using Wireless Diagnostics->WIndow->Utilities->Scan, does the scan list atleast show your wireless network ? Are you sure this is not a hidden network ? Don't mean to quiz you, just throwing out a few questions in the hope of getting your WiFi to work.

I am connected again.  After about an hour it just reconnected and has been working like a gem since.  Where do I find "Wireless Diagnostics"?  Sorry, I am a still new to iOS

Hold down Option key and click on WiFI icon in Finder bar. At the bottom you should see an option to launch WIreless Diagnostics. If you let diags monitor your connection, be wary of the drops it detects as it tries to detect every ping drop so its still a good thing, but doesnt mean your connection is completley broken. It is a diagnostic tool so can't blame it for being super precise . (Atleast thats what I have noticed.)

If you are not seing any wireless issues generally while using the machine then you should be good.

Apple's mac sales are down 5% year over year in Apple's June quarter... Perhaps its due to an excessive number of returned products for being defective !

Apples are still so far ahead and have so many fewer headaches than all the PC's I've ever owned and that is saying a lot!

I am sure that is why they have yet to acknowledge that there is a problem - hiding it from the stakeholders.  I doubt anyone is surprised that the stakeholders come ahead of customers.  Even the patch they finally released says "in some rare circumstances".  Of course, this is a lie and a slap in the face to customers like me. It will change only when customers matter to them.

Apple - knock knock - care to address any of this?  (silent response = nope, only your money matters to us)

des325,

Has your Wi-Fi is working properly since the last issue you posted about ? Did you ever get to find out what happened when you could not connect ?

It has not reoccured yet, but we have no idea what happened.

I want to add, the tech I have been working with is very good and very thorough.  I think he is bound to not discuss the actual flaws in the hardware.  To return the product now is not easy as they will want to me to demonstrate the problem in their lab, which of course it won't happen there.

Here is my woeful tale.  Bought my MBA 3 months ago.  My wifi connection at home is and always has been rock solid. I know this because my iPhone, work laptop and smart TV all work just fine with my wifi. But not MBA.  I could browse for hours and it would work fine some days.  Other days it would crash every 15 minutes.  When it crashed all I could do was restart my router.  Being busy with work and all I kept putting off doing anything about it, but finally last week I got sick of it.  I started by calling my ISP because I thought they might have some helpful tips.  Turns out my router was getting old so they sent a guy to the house to replace it.  After that I couldn't get on the internet at all with my MBA.  It would just say "Failed to open. You are not connected to the Internet."  I could see that it was connected to the wifi network but it just wouldn't bring up the Internet.  Again, my iPhone, work laptop and smart TV all worked just fine on the wifi network.  To make matters worse, my MBA could connect to my Verizon hotspot and browse just fine. So the problem seemed to be that my MBA just couldn't communicate with the home wifi network for some reason.  I tried calling Apple but didn't want to pay extra money for advice on something that should be working correctly after i just bought this thing 3 months ago.  I called the Geek Squad since I have the extra software/hardware protection plans through BestBuy, but they were not helpful at all (accidentally hung up on my twice, put me on hold for 35 minutes each time I called back, and in the end couldn't help at all).  After thinking about it for a LONG time, it occurred to me that the problem was an inability to browse - therefore maybe the problem wasn't the MBA but instead maybe it was the browser itself. Suddenly, it all came into focus.  Safari is a tragic pain in the butt as everyone know but could it really be so bad that it's actually not letting me connect to the internet at all? I didn't get it until right at that moment that Safari was also the root of the problem with the crashing router, not the MBA.  So I uploaded Google Chrome and my internet service came roaring back to life.

Never ever ever again will I use Safari.  I'm also noticing that little things that had been missing or non-functional with various accounts online are not working just fine again.  ****, that Safari is baaaaaad.

I'm not an engineer, just a guy waiting for a definitive answer about the 2013 MBA WI FI issues.  I'm holding  off on purchase until a decent resolution is achieved.   Look, Mac is a premium purchase as compared to a PC.   I expect a premium machine, since I'm paying a premium price. For hassles I can go out and buy a $500 PC, and even at that I'm not sure there would actually be any siginficant issues with that machine.  If this is really a hardware issue, which many are guessing it is, I want to know about it so that I can make an informed purcasing decision.  I really want to buy an MBA, biut if this mess does not get resolved soon I'll go for a Macbook Pro.

Thanks!

Since they issued their patch, I have only had one issue that I think was related, but don't know for sure.  I am hoping it is resolved.  The issue I have, and why I agree that you should be cautious, is that they refuse to admit that there is even a problem.  They sent an e-mail to some customers to test the fix, but even then they did not confess to the obvious problem.  The text associated to the patch even referred to the WiFi issue as "rare occurrences", which of course is a lie.  It is their integrity that they are sacrificing to hide the issue from their stakeholders.

I sympathise entirely with those having this problem and I mean no offence, but I do not know that we have enough evidence to say that calling the problem 'rare' is 'obviously a lie'.  There is something of an 'observer effect' at work.  I have four Macbook Airs in my immediate circle (big family): original shape 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013.  They are all fine, with no problems since the original issue I had with the 2011 not automatically reconnecting to some networks after a sleep (resolved long since by one of the updates).  Based on MY sample size, therefore, the problem IS rare - but these machines travel to relatively few networks, mostly with apple WiFi devices and accompanied by 'backup' ethernet dongles when the going gets tough.  In response to 'overwhathill' above, I would say 'go boldly'.  If you like the look and feel of the 'Air' then get one, test it carefully and make your decision during the return period.  Mine have been sensational and more than worth the price difference for the 'cool factor', ease of use and of course the operating system (which is better than any flavour of WIndows I have grappled with).

Is this issue at all resolved now? I'm looking to purchase a new 13" air, but as a student I require this to not be an issue.  Does anyone know if they've changed anything internally over the past month to make this a non-issue?