I am in a hotel with my laptop and new ipad3. The laptop wifi reception is as strong as it gets, but the iPad only registers a weak signal. Anyone else having similar problems? Any suggestions?
iPad (3rd generation) Wi-Fi, iOS 5.1
I too have a new iPad, the 16 gig wifi. I have a Mac desktop, MacBook pro, 2 iPhone 4's and they all have a better wifi signal anywhere in my house than my new iPad!!! My router is in the basement and on the second floor my iPad is the only one the does not pick up! I can even stand in the basement with my iPad and watch the signal strength fluctuate between full and half strength!!! Have always been an Apple fan but it is a little embarrassing that for the money this cost the wifi can't be what you would expect!
As a remedy to this, you can increase signal strength of your wireless router by going into it's software or firmware, or if it doesnt allow you to do this, you can put Tomato or DD-WRT firmware on your router as a way to increase signal strength.
Buying the first batch of any product always has the risk of having errors or mistakes, and lots of people are victims of this, some aren't. I'm on an iPad 3 and everything is perfect.
You didn't have to rebuy them if you put the same Apple ID in that you used to buy the apps originally, or went to the Purchased tab in the App Store to redownload them.
I have just rung Apple Australia and they are going to pick up my unit and replace it. I wont be without the ipad3 as I give my return to the driver that delivers the replacement in 10 days or so. Thats nice.
Please see my video below where I show how the death grip causes the wifi reception to drop from 4 bars to 0 every time
Id be interested to see those people who dont think they have an issue try this. The part I grip is the bottom left corner in Landscape mode
I'm having trouble with my iPad2, not the new one. I feel like after the most recent update, it has been picking up weak signal that is much stronger on my laptop, right next to it. Could that be the issue?
How long before these wifi problems are fixed!?! This is ridiculous. I cannot connect to the internet in the hotel I'm staying at. I stayed here a couple nights ago on the second floor and everything was fine. I stayed on the third floor tonight and couldn't ever connect. The network would show up with a check mark beside it but it wouldn't ever take me to the "accept terms" page. It works right away on my iPhone 4S. I thought when companies came out with newer models they were upgrades? The new iPad seems to be a complete downgrade. Overheating(I don't mind), yellow screen, eating up data plans, wifi problems? I was already disappointed the new iPad is basically a iPad 2S but it's even more frustrating it doesn't work.
I just cancled my order for the new ipad, i use my ipad 1 outside my house on the hammock a lot, and thats pushing my wifi signal.
Ill wAit until apple responds and fixes this problem..
You can take a look at the teardown on iFixit to try to see if there is an antenna near there.
I was in the Regent Street Apple store in London yesterday. Five out of the seven ipad 3s I picked up dropped Wi-Fi strength by either 1 or 2 bars within 10 secs of holding them in landscape. So with only two out of seven working properly I think I’d wait a while yet before buying.
I am experiencing similar issues with wifi signal strength. I have two routers, Motorolla and Netgear and have done all troubleshooting with no success. I pulled the netgear out because I couldn't get more then 10-12 ft away from the motorolla without it dropping connection. All other equipment in house works flawlessly, even get good connection up the driveway at about 60-70 ft away from router. I decided to be one of those people, because when you drop $900 on a product you expect it to work, though I do understand that people have problems but this seems a little to wide spread in my opinion. I emailed Tim Cook, expecting a reply from someone in his office. I was contacted by someone based out of Toronto who works in essentially managing and responding to emails on Tim Cook's behalf. The representative was very professional though he let me know he was not a tech advisor. We talked about the issues and I expressed that I just wanted a guarantee if this problem is not fixed that I can exchange my Ipad for a working one even outside of the "2" week return. I am going to be talking to a senior tech tomorrow evening where they are going to collect some information from my Ipad and I'm sure waste an hour re-troubleshooting. The rep told me that based on the collected research so far no internal documentation has come out about the problem being widespread enough or there being an iOS update that would solve this. That doesn't mean there won't be or that they would tell me anyway. I in reality did not get an answer but I will post if I have any success with the engineer who will be calling me tomorrow.
How do I find out the strength of my wifi signal other than looking at the bars in the top left corner?
Go to speedtest.net and download the app or use their website to run an immediate test of your wifi strength with your device.
RE: looking at signal strength
I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I think it's worth repeating.
If you have an Apple Extreme (and a mac), you can see signal strength via airport utility 5.6 (which runs fine on Lion; the newer one doesn't have, or has hidden, this feature). You can download the utility version 5.6 for Lion from apple. (If you have an older airport express as I do, you need it to configure that)
It's in the Advanced Tab, Logging and Stats section, click the log and stats button.
These signals strenths are much more informative than the bars. It also shows you connection speed. For example, my MBP connects at 130 mbit, but new ipad only at 65 (probably its limit) close to the router. So, the ipad might drop from 65 down to 24, but you won't see a difference if you're running speedtest app (assuming your broadband is < 24), but you do care in the use case of moving large files in your home network.
Ron
Let's take your whole email in context. I suppose you don't travel much if this is the first hotel where you get bad signal on the third floor. Receptions in hotels depend on how many repeaters do they have throughout the hotel.
But one of your comments really just does not make any sense, "eating through data plans". How can you blame Apple and the ipad because you do not have an unlimited data plan. If you were to use your iphone the same way or an android phone you would eat your data plan, as you say, just as fast. Do you understand that the ipad just have 4G LTE, and that the phone companies are the one that cap them, it is not Apple.
I just want people for once to make sense and think twice or read, before they make outlandish statements like you. If you don't want the thing, take it back and quit complaining. Some of you, I think, just buy this thing just to see what you can fiind wong with it.
You are right. The bars do not mean anything except how strong is the signal. You can have one or two bars and have the same speed as four bars.
If people would just have more curiosity and look things on their own. No, today they just come to forums expecting everyone else to do the work for them.
Poor wifi reception on new iPad
