Q: iPhone 5 wifi issues

That's a good comment rbrylawski!

I'm an interested observer on this discussion since I updated my iPhone4 to IOS 6  and had no problems. That thread has pretty much died so I don't think there's anyone that still has a problem with IOS6 and 4/4s that didn't figure out some fix, which may have started with the 404 on the web page, but then went south from there. I suspect that Apple has probably burned through their expected replacements by now and the list is skewed only to people that did not get it working.

Why comment if your iPhone worked exactly as expected?

Apple must have some idea as to how many failed, I suspect it's a pretty small number overall.

Almost every fix has been related to the router, or configuration of the router, or resetting the iPhone, but few have claimed they actually did a DFU restore and still have a problem, while also making sure their router is set up properly or even compatible with the iPhone 5. Not other devices, not other iPhones, but that iPhone. So if it works in the Apple store, it probably is something to do with your router settings.

Of couse there were the various combinations of user settings/restores on the phone. Many of which seem close to voodoo, but if they worked, fine. There's convergence in a couple of areas, and oddly they all could be right. Even the wierd freezer one, (since the chip can adust how it works to temperature variations in WIFI), but that does sound like voodoo to me.

As a network engineer that has done high end Apple support and integration for a few select customers (they use the Genius bar for normal support which works most of the time)  I look at things a bit differently and am willing to suspend judgement as to the actual cause and try different things using standard debugging techniques. For example, I can actually look at what data is going to Apple, and what is coming back, (or not coming back).

I've found that these software glitches eventually get fixed in future software releases or patches where the real tension is always in regards to making it work with no hassle for the person who is not willing to persue the problem beyond a few steps. That design element that Jobs so assidiously pursued, (down to the click of the headphone jack) is different than commodity mentality. It does not however, change the fundamentals underneath.

Making it easy is fundamentally hard and is a design issue, rather than a technical issue. Little has been done to make users self-reliant despite some good documentation.

By and large this stuff "just works" to a point that your typical Apple user can easily get by with the provided documentation and in store support.

Then there is the real techie who is totally on the other end of the spectrum. Different issue.

What's missing is the typical vast middle of people who know the basics of WIFI. 

I've actually read each posting on this thread, and changing the router settings seems like a challenge to most people.

A couple of points.  The list commenters repeately  say "I tried everything, I'm going back to Apple for a new phone"

You didn't try everything, And Apple is getting smart in that regard if they can get it to work in the store. I agree with that.

If you did you could list the things you tried.

So this  type of comment is useless

Perhaps this is a  combo software/hardware/firmware problem the logic however to whatever cause the problem, or what actually fixed it is not converging since they are different, but then the people who did that change drop off the discussion because it works for them.

3. This is not the place that "please help?  or complaints to Apple apparently produces a useful response

4. Any time I see someone actually post what they did, what settings they used on their router, etc. I'm very impressed. Did they try changing the DNS? Ok, simple. Using a different router? Changing G to N or vice versa, changing encryption, changing frequency?

5. The missing button from "beta" version is a tell, this seems to fall into "when is a feature a bug?" category

If the phone can't properly distinguish between a good WIFI connection and a fast Cell connection it apparently was told to use the fast Cell connnection.  That would quickly burn up minutes.

That was sold as a "novice user" design  feature, WIFI "connected" but not working, (i.e. connected to the router, but not going beyond that) so the phone says "hmm I am connected to WIFI, but not going anywhere...."  I am a dumb phone, how do I  know this. er ahh, hey let me check the DNS!

WIFI gave me this DNS, I will go check apple.com, ok #FAIL, that means I am connected to the WIFI but the WIFI is not set up right.  It does not think. Hmm, maybe somebody messed up the test page and I should try to connect somewhere else. 

Alright let me see if I can connect over the Cell, hey I can, I will use that instead until the WIFI is "fixed". 

Since this may be part of the set up procedure, the try/fail logic may be bad.

Can I negotiate WPA encryption? Yes, OK, then why keep trying?  Remember that this chip maintains a "always on" state, to do that it has to store something, or figure out something so it knows it is connected.

A phone with wifi have to connect to wifi. No I have to be an engineer to use my phone.

No more.

And my phone does not work. And so I hand to return it as all people do not work.

You can use whatever DNS you want. Some people will use the Google DNS, Open DNS, or the DNS from one's provider which should be forwarded to the iPhone from your router via DHCP.

I prefer the one from my provider since they do DNS security (DNSSEC) and therefore you cannot get a faked reply.

In fact...now that I think about it if your DNS provider said the destination was fake, and the 8.8.8.8 said it was ok, which would be your preference?

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq#dnssec

Where do you find when the iPhone5 was made?

There are some very smug posts with tones of victim blaming on here, that are uncalled for.

There is a problem with some percentage of these phones, and jumping thru hoops, even if it works, should not be necessary. This is a phone, and a premium phone, and it should just work.

Don't try and make people feel stupid if they can't fix it themselves. In many cases, it's not even possible.

We acknowlege your superior intellect and vast tech creditials. Now, show your credentials as a human being and have some sympathy for a lot of people who are very frustrated and have spent hours & hours troubleshooting this to no avail.

There are 2 choices for most of us with this problem:

1) Return it now

2) Wait for a fix

@ceasarinho - I hear ya bro, I feel your pain.

Did exactly what you said, and even named the phone with a one-word name.

Don't work...

It works a little while (half a minute?) and then stops. I tried it with a video (Norwegian NRK live net-tv), and it stopped after 15 seconds. Tried surfing some web pages afterwards, but no go...

SOOO the iPhone DON'T work at WPA2/AES.

I'm actually trying to be helpful. There's nothing smug about it. But I can see why it would come off that way. Why would a network engineer be interested in your problems?

So if that's how my tone came off I certainly apologize. My intentions are honorable.

I also agree with you that it should "just work".   That's what the paid support does.

Myself, I always buy AppleCare in a heartbeat and have learned some good stuff from the store staff and have mistakenly replaced a phone where it turned out that neither the iPhone hardware or software nor my own equipment was  the cause, because the same problem later appeared with the new hardware.

In that case neither support, nor replacing the phone worked, because the problem was not with either, nor myself, nor could I find a solution on the Internet.

It was external to both and a puzzle. An incredibly annoying puzzle.

Since I wasted a great deal of time researching it, way beyond Apple Support, I found a knowledge gap in solving my problem.

Ultimately, the customer is always right is the #1 rule, and #2 is see rule 1.

No one should have to apply anything extraordinary to make it work or be an engineer.

However if you are only using the discussion to diss the product or say you are going to return it, how does that converge on a solution for everyone until they release a patch?  It's just noise.

But with a "premium" product comes premium design. And premium execution. So don't mistake some of us trying to dig down a bit deeper to find the problem, as being the same as patronizing to end users for RTFM.

That attention to detail is an Apple core value. So is appealing to all levels of expertise.

It's not an either or situation. There's far too many twisty knobs that have been tried, of which many have worked with no consistent theme other than router mismatch.

Or DNS going to router. Or WPA2, or failing to reset, or Apple perhaps failing to test properly and get WIFI certified for this model, or the software handing off to the cell service because of a button present in the beta that disasppeared in the build, an so on. Remarkably, most of those people are working now with the fixes that appeared here, or on the net that they generated by themselves.

I certainly would not expect my wife or kids to understand how to configure the router.  Nor should they have to but they are Apple experts when it comes to using it and I am not.

Apple does this stuff quite well. However coming from the 128K Mac days forward, and when Steve Jobs was at NeXT (and I sold Apple 2s) there's still a bunch of us that are willing to entertain that it is not necessarily the product at fault but how the product was introduced into the ecosystem involving other components that could have affected how it works, I got that in Apple Training back in 1985, which did focus on fundamentals more than the current very sophisticated User Interface.

This has always been an ongoing discussion as to what works best, and what does not as driven by the end users, and not the designers. I just happened to be fortunate to work out some problems and get paid to take a wider look at the problem.

I'm looking forward to getting an iPhone 5, and pretty confident when I upgrade that it's not going to have any surprises. 

I don't know if this will help but I have had the same problems with wifi on my new iPhone 5 and also my iPad 3 which is also running IOS 6. Go to settings on iPhone/iPad, go to wifi and hi-light your network I.e. the one with a tick. To his wii take you to next page where you can scroll down to bottom of the page - HTTP Proxy. Set this to auto, mine was off. Since doing this my wifi connection has been perfect, no slow connections or drop outs, it's working as it should.  Hope this helps, if not you can just put the proxy back to what it was.

Try this guys but when I drink coffee the wifi doesnt work on iphone 5 but when I drink tea it works!!!

give it a try everyone!

Thats why its called Iphone 5  it has got 5 problems!

wifi doesnt work

gets hot

maps don't work

battery drains

costs alot of money

That's what I like to see a bit of humour!!  Since I changed my proxy settings to auto I have had no more problems so I can smile again. :-)

I tried the proxy auto settings but that won't work after a while either!

It worked for me on both my iPhone and my iPad. Been surfing all night without a problem unlike last night which was a nightmare! Spoke to apple this morning who are in denial of there being a problem tho they were happy to give me a new phone ( had mine 3 days) and replace my iPad, both of which I declined as I need my phone over the next week,  they couldn't say when I would receive a new phone due to a shortage of iPhones, it apparently could be at least 2 weeks which is not acceptable. Not sure why apple were so quick to offer a new phone if they are denying that there is a problem with what appears to be IOS 6.  Hopefully my wifi is ok now but I will still keep fingers, toes and anything else crossed!! These things have a habit if reoccurring.

I bought online and have today decided to return for a refund!

Within 14 days of buying you can return for a refund! Overall disappointed!

I'm getting 21mbps after I tweaked my settings on my router that I posted earlier. Before I was was getting<3mbps with laptops and Xbox and 2 iPhones on a wpa2 security configuration  it's not the phone5 issue. Granted the iPhone 5 wasn't truely plug and play right out of the box but now it's running great I love it. Just like any new product on the market there are growing pains and the buyer beware when buying the newest gadget if they aren't willing to deal with alittle tweaking on their own  then they should wait awhile till apple can change the software