Poor wifi reception on new iPad

I own two new iPads (and also a couple of iPad 1 and 2), we have a huge house (3 floors) and the WiFi router is located in the first floor in my home office. I have no issues whatsover with the WiFi connection and I even use the new iPad in the garden. WiFi signal there is weak but the new iPad still gets a pretty decent connection speed. If someone has issues with the WiFi reception, I think that the WiFi router/AP is to blame and not the iPad.

Thanks, from my post, you can tell I like technology, I also work in it, I was excited about the retina display, I've never bought an iPad but been involved with iOS and Android development for a couple of years so I had access through work. Apple charges a premium for their products, I see signs however that they may be following Microsoft down the same road, forgetting their roots. For the premium, I expect performance and quality. I bought the wife an iMAC 27" last fall. I like it and she likes it but like the iPad 3, it has some issues, OSX Lion is buggy, calendar and other apps crash, the error log stays pretty busy.

MIT Technology Review wrote a great article. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39925/

I would suggest Apple interview people to be beta testers, they sure as **** can afford it. If they want to be the big dog and remain that way, they need to get their act together. I would be happy to sign a lifetime non-disclosure agreement in return for testing their products. I want to see a company do well.

Google sent me a ChromeBook free to beta test a year or two ago. While I did not care for the concept (cloud computing is not yet everywhere) it was nevertheless a great concept.

Yeah, I bought Apple for quality as well. I have iPad1, iPad2, had iPad 3 but returned for color and wifi issues, Macbook Pro, 3 Apple Airport Express Routers, iPhone 4 and 4S, and my favorite Macbook Air 11" i7 4 gig RAM and solid state 256gig drive. All were great except I went through 5 iPad 2's for light leaks before I got a good one and 4 iPad 3's which I just returned for refund (will try again in a month. I also run 3 DELL laptops E4300, E4310 and a 2120 I use for switch management. So I use tech equipment for what it can do for me. They'll get the iPad issues worked out in a month or so as they did the iPad 2. We'll just have to be patient for a bit longer. I know there are good ones out there as well, I just wish I'd been one of the ones to get one on the first go!!!!!!

I am so happy you got one of the good ones, I wish I did but the 4 I test were not up to par. There are combinations of wifi issues and some my be related to router and or AP, but not all. It was tested at an APPLE STORE and the iPad 3 (three units) failed wifi while the iPad 2 sailed on with out issue. So there is a wifi problem with some of the units being delivered at this time. I'm sure they'll sort it out in a month or two but for now the only way to know if you got a good one is to test it for color and wifi and if its good, the good on you, and if its bad take it back and try another or wait a month or two and try again.....

Christian, for kicks, try using two routers with one SSID.

@christiangreenberg - so you know better than the hundreds of people who posted here, including me?

Quick update on how I've been trying to get to the bottom of this.

I know that many of us just want some formal acknowledge of the issue from Apple. Well with that in mind I emailed Tim Cook on a whim yesterday summarizing my current disappointment with the product as well as mentioning this thread.

Lo and behold this morning I get a call from Apple's executive management support team on behalf of Tim Cook. I gentleman I talked to couldn't have been more professional and said that he wished to gather some information about my situation and he would take that to his engineering contact for guidance by Monday afternoon. He also suggested that I take my device to an Apple store and test the WiFi reception there and leave him a voicemail about how it went. He said I shouldn't try to trade it in for a different model at this time because there is a chance the engineers at Apple may want to get their hands on my particular device.

I for one was truly touched that I actually got through to Tim Cook and that he passed my email onto someone to investigate the problem. I have been a lifelong Apple customer ever since my Dad let me play on his Apple II as a little kid. I have to give them the benefit of the doubt here in that when you scale up production to such a large scale you cannot possibly test every single unit thoroughly. I don't blame them for that. I do credit them for wanting to bring about a resolution and caring enough to follow-up when there is a problem.

I'm also having the same wifi issues described here - poor and flaky reception. Not so much the hand over the corner issue though.

Does apple use a single supplier for the wifi chipset in the ipad3? I'm wondering if possibly one chipset is better than another - or works better with the current iOS drivers. My manufacturer code for wifi from the MAC address is 74:E1:B6 (first six characters). Do all ipad3s have this same prefix, or are there more than one. My original iPad which is fine is 76:6D:62. Would be interesting to know if this varies and if it correlates to those of us having issues.

/Jim

Went to the Apple store and got a replacement unit. Now I have great reception on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. Looks like it was a manufacturing defect.

If anyone can, post the manufacturer of your wifi card in the iPad that your're having problems with here.

I don't have mine with me. You can look it up by typing the MAC address in a website like this one or looking it up. http://curreedy.com/stu/nic/

All MAC addresses are unique number and the manufacture can be determined by it. Don't actually post your MAC address for security reasons. I would be curious to see if they are all the same manufacturer or not.

The only place I have problems with wifi reception is at my daughter's house. I also had the same problems with my original iPad. I think it is the Linkys router that my son-in-law (who DETESTS all things Apple!) has and how he has it set up. His son has an iPad 2 and it also has problems - my daughter's MacBookPro has the same problems.

A coupld of years ago in a summer house we rented, those of us using Apple computers had tons of wifi problems. Since we were to be in the house for a month, I got fed up with having wasted hours on the phone with Linkys (which charged for the calls!) and getting nowhere. I went out and bought an Airport Extreme Base station and had no further problems.

It would seem that any router would work, but that is just not always the case. I think part of the problem is that many of the other brands are difficult to set-up and the Apple router is very easy.

It's showing Apple, Inc. as the manufacturer for the wifi card.

First 6 characters, which I posted, should be mfg code. My ipad3 looks up as Apple, Inc. my ipad1 isn't found and I checked a few places. I don't know how reliable the database we check are though. Apple may come from end users holding iPads with that prefix, not from a mfg. or even if different HW makers, could apple have them all use Apple if going into an Apple device? I suspect you'll need to collect at least a couple characters from the MAC for anyone to sort this.

I haven't called Apple yet, but I wonder if they are asking this question...

Thanks

Interesting, WIFI is an IEEE approved standard, if your item is 802.11 compliant it should work regardless of manufacturer.

Very interesting Apple is making their own wireless card, I wonder what kind of chipset they are using? I Googled it but found nothing.

Apple is going send me a replacement, they send me a box, I send in my iPAD and they send me a new one. I will be without mine for 5-7 days after I paid $599 for the thing.

It is kind of aggrivating you can't give them a credit card number or something to speed up the exchange time.

That does not make me very happy.