iOS 6 disables wi-fi on sleep mode - disappointing

MichaelRev1412 wrote:

Spoke to a Senior tech at Apple. I have the iPhone 5. When the iPhone goes to sleep, it turns off the WiFi to save battery and there is nothing you can do about it. Case closed. It's a "feature" of iOS 6.

It's also a "feature" of iOS 5, and a "feature" of iOS 4, and a "feature" of iOS 3, and a "feature" of iOS 2, and a "feature" of iOS 1. All iPhones have always worked this way.

I have no cell signal at home or work where I live. I've been happy with my iPhone since I bought one in 2007 and have owned every model since. But now, my iPhone 5 turns into a brick when it goes to sleep and is worthless to me 95% of the time.

If you leave it plugged it it won't go to sleep.

And no, iOS 5 cannot be installed on an iPhone 5, and it won't change anything if it could.

I don't have a problem, but I though I was a good candidate to post the results of some ping tests...

Phone1:

iPhone 4S with iOS 6.01

Cellular Data is enabled, but there is no connection. For info, I'm in a tempested building (but unclassified) so cellular never works...

Connected to Wifi via WPA2

Prompt for Networks off.

Phone2:

iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0

all the exact same settings/conditions as above.

Phone3:

iPhone 4S Jailbroken iOS 5.1.1

all the exact same settings/conditions as above.

Test Procedure:

Disconnect phone from any power source (internal battery only)

Click the home button on the phone.

Perpetual Ping Phone (suceeds)

Phone goes to sleep

Pings begin timing out after about 25-30 seconds

Send iMessage to Phone # using OSX Mountain Lion

iMessage arrives and Pings begin succeeding again.

Phone goes back to sleep

Pings begin timing out after about 25-30 seconds

I let each phone the sleep for 5 minutes before sending another iMessage...

iMessage arrives and Pings begin succeeding again.

Phone goes back to sleep

Pings begin timing out after about 25-30 seconds

When the phone re-alerts for the iMessage Pings succeed again...

I waited then 10 minutes...

iMessage arrives and Pings begin succeeding again.

Acknowledge Message.

Phone goes back to sleep

Pings begin timing out after about 25-30 seconds

I waited then 30 minutes...

Same as above...

None of the 3 phones ever failed to receive an iMessage...even though Pings were failing.

My conclusion is that even the the Pings are failing, WiFi remains active; it simply doesn't respond to the Ping Requests....

Message was edited by: mej16489 Edited to note that phones were not on any power source other then internal battery.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

MichaelRev1412 wrote:

Spoke to a Senior tech at Apple. I have the iPhone 5. When the iPhone goes to sleep, it turns off the WiFi to save battery and there is nothing you can do about it. Case closed. It's a "feature" of iOS 6.

It's also a "feature" of iOS 5, and a "feature" of iOS 4, and a "feature" of iOS 3, and a "feature" of iOS 2, and a "feature" of iOS 1. All iPhones have always worked this way.

I have a iPhone 4, and the behavior of the phone has suddenly changed since upgrading to ios6. With 5 and 5.1 i would receive emails all day long with no cell connection at all (turned off because of the lack of signal where I work). I also stayed connected to the company wifi the whole day unless I left the area.

Now I don't get any emails unless I wake the phone up and I am disconnected from the wifi almost instantly after going to sleep. (stays connected if i hit the button within about ten seconds after sleep). This is new since ios6. Then it requires me to accept the company "acceptable usage" policy every time I wake up. Definitely didn't have to do that before. Other android users have noticed no change at all.

Regard less of what you say of it being a "feature" of all previous versions of ios, the "feature" now has a different behavior than before. One visibly different thing is it now tries to connect to apple.com as soon as the wifi comes up to verify a connection. Previous ios' did not do this. This causes a whole other problem for people who have WebSense, SurfPatrol or other website blocking on their company servers. Our company blocks apple.com, now I can use the WPA2 Enterprise connection that I used to be able to...

I find it very hard to believe that there are 9 pages of this thread of "stupid" people, who can't realize that their phone works exactly as it has for all of time. I guess all the extra data usage people are noticing is not real either... Maybe you should consider the evidence presented before you make demeaning comments.

Thanks, seems logical. But it would be much more better to make this decision on my own.

In the office the SIP-phone should not go to cellular data, makes no sense. The phone is plugged in at the desktop, but while I am running around certainly not. So it should be my decision.

Max be in the next iOS .

Thanks, seems logical. But it would be much more better to make this decision on my own.

In the office the SIP-phone should not go to cellular data, makes no sense. The phone is plugged in at the desktop, but while I am running around certainly not. So it should be my decision.

Max be in the next iOS .

so do you mean that when i download large size application (appstore) when suddenly my phone turn into locked the download will cancel? or when my phone is locked, nobody can call me on viber, skype, YM etc?

I can raise my hand for this result as well. I've exactly this behaviour on my 4s running 6.0.1. Messages of any type are received in all apple-apps, but the phone does not respond to ping during sleep. So it seems to be WiFi connected during sleep.

Additoinal test I have done: I've installed an app called "Fing" on my ipad2. Fing is showing all local network devices which are currently connected. The iphone does never disappear as long as it is in my WiFi area and WiFi is turned on, no matter if in sleep or in wake. For me it is proved that the WiFi is not intended to disconnect when the phone goes to sleep.

Lawrence,

You've made your point several times on this thread. I appreciate you trying to help but you're wrong. It's different in iOS 6. That's the bottom line. I've had an iPhone and iPad for several years now (several models and iOS updates) and this time it is different.

I have a WiFi-only iPad 2 and it's basically a doorstop at this point. I can't bring it to meetings because it disconnects from WiFi once it sleeps. You can technically say that's what happened before but in iOS 5 it would poll or do something so that I would still keep receiving emails, IMs, etc. It's useless at this point. Explain why it's different now. It never did that before. Oh, and as I mentioned earlier in this thread, it only does this on WPA2 encrypted networks. On my WPA network at home this does not happen.

It's not working correctly, Lawrence.

The only way I can get my iPhone5s to stay connected to WiFi in sleep, or at least keep the WiFi icon on the info bar, is to have them plugged into a computer's usb port. This does not happen when connected to the supplied AC adapter, only when connected to usb port. If WiFi stays active while in sleep and not plugged in, even when the icon is not shown, I'm not 100% sure. I did test between two iPhone5s by turning cell data off on one, putting it into sleep, and sending it an iMessage from another. The one in sleep did receive the iMessage when cell data was turned off.

i was having the same problem after the update, notifications that showed before werent unless i turned on the phone...did the forget this network step, reset the router and reentered the password and now imessage and emails and the rest of my notifications come through.

well now today its back to not working the correct way...so everytime i come to work am i going to have to reset my router? thats going to get old!

anyone have a different solution

when its working the wifi thing pops up immediatly when coming out of sleep mode...when its not it takes a few seconds for the wifi bars to pop up on the screen coming out of sleep.

ok new update...the last 2 days when i come into work, i restart my phone and the notifications seem to come in that way while on airplane mode...wierd, wish apple would look into this.

before restarting the phone i did a clean 6.01 install.

so i guess every day i come to work i will restart the phone...

******* frustrating ridiculous problem! iPhone 5 is totally useless without being notified,

what if you have call from YM, Skype, Viber, or even on facetime, how do you know if someone calling you? ****!!! apple *****!

time to sell this **** apple products and switch to other,

im a loyal fan of apple, but if they are like this and tell that it is a new features! **** you apple,

your product is useless without being notified!

Please refer to release notes for iOS4:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100809223207/http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1058

it says "• Persistent WiFi connection to receive push notifications*.

So I think that before iOS4 the WiFi has not been persistent, but they changed with iOS4 and made it always-on. I don't know why they didn't keep this feature in iOS6 as well, because I still find it very annoying and it is limiting the use of my devices (e.g. no incoming facetime calls if no cell data available)