iphone 4s wifi greyed out.

Here is my 4S story. I've had my phone for a year and a half. Few weeks after upgrading to IOS7 my wifi greyed out. I spent a couple days dealing with first my provider and then apple. Finally reached a "specialist" and he decided it was a hardware problem. I was about 30 days out of my warranty. He very graciously sent me another phone that I didn't have to pay for. Whoopee, thought I hit the jackpot.

About 5 weeks goes by and the new phone does the same thing. Greyed out, no wifi. I am in no mood to jump through hoops again so I checked my with my provider to see when I can upgrade without paying an arm and a leg. Wifi is great but I know I can absolutley live without it. The biggest problem I have is having to charge my phone a lot more then when the wifi works.

Yesterday I wake up, unplug the phone and guess what? Wifi is back. All by itself. I didn't do a darn thing. No hoops jumped through, no procedures nothing. This is about 4 weeks later mind you.

So....is it the upgrade that is making the hardware fail? I never had any trouble with wifi until the upgrade. Also, my husband has the 5, and daughters have the 4 and 3. Not one of them have ever had a wifi issue since the upgrade. Just me, the one with the 4S.

It seems the upgrade is creating an issue with the 4S. Hardware, software...seems like both to me.

So how do we (those screwed with grayed out wifi) update to 7.0.6? No way to update over 3G, right?

You update your iOS by connecting your device to iTunes.

iOS: How to update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Support - Apple

Update your device using iTunes

If you can’t update wirelessly, or if you want to update with iTunes, follow these steps:

1. If you use your device's Personal Hotspot for your computer's Internet connection, update your device wirelessly or connect your computer to another network.
2. Install the latest version of iTunes on your computer.
3. Plug in your device to your computer.
4. In iTunes, select your device.
5. In the Summary pane, click Check for Update.
   
6. Click Download and Update.
   

Did anyone upgrade to 7.0.6? Does it solve the problem with the wi-fi?

I upgraded to 7 from 6 and it did not help. This makes perfect sense since it's a hardware issue.

iv4000 wrote:

Did anyone upgrade to 7.0.6? Does it solve the problem with the wi-fi?

No, and in fact, there are already reports of people that did NOT have this issue updating to iOS 7.0.6 and are NOW experiencing the issue.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5928638?answerId=24950465022#24950465022

My other half's phone has just started having this issue. While I'd like to say thank you to all the people coming up with ideas to sort it out, those arguing that it's not Apple's fault, or that the end consumer should have to bare the cost if it's out of warranty, or that damage can be caused by people knocking into you are just mad.

The phone's cost £450 new (from memory) and at that price should be good for at least two years regardless of the warranty length. They are sold alongside 2 year contracts which is a good indication of what can reasonably be expected at a minimum. They should also be fit for purpose and I'd suggest that not being able to withstand a bump is not fit for purpose when we're talking about a phone. Finally, it is Apple's fault if the hardware goes wrong -it may not be caused by software updates but that doesn't remove Apple's responsibility. The fact it is mass produced and therefore just one of those things also doesn't hold muster.

Thankfully I believe she's still in the warranty period so I expect most of this to be moot but suggesting that people should have to buy extended warranties when consumer protection laws alone should protect them is just incredibly annoying.

The terms of the warranty were readily available at your time of purchase. Apple even offers to extend the hardware coverage by one additional year so that it will coincide with the average cellphone contract of two years. That hardware coverage extension is available for as little as $69. Twwnty cents per day, approximately.

If you felt that a one-year warranty for a $450 device was not sufficient, then at time of purchase you should have addressed that concern, and either purchased extended coverage, or declined the purchase.

That's pretty much my point though. Companies use warranties to limit people's willingness to use consumer protection law. As for extended warranties, they are pretty much a licence to print money as the actual cost of offering the warranty is in pence while the amount charged is considerably more, hence why most retailers push warranties on consumers so much as they make massive margin.

One could reasonably expect a £450 phone to be able to handle the problems it is likely to face as a phone (ie being bumped and arguably dropped) for more than 2 years. Especially when people are tied into 2 year contracts in order to use that phone. Whether Apple's warranty covers it or not is neither here nor there when it comes to one's rights as a consumer and is it this insistence that the consumer should lump it that is most galling about some of the comments on this thread.

Which is why I've said that people should direct their complaints to the right place.

I personally think the consumer protection laws shoudl be changed, which is why I've voiced that opinion on a regular basis to my representatives. But until the law is changed, we have to work within the system.

By the way, a lot of wireless carriers offer month-to-month no contract options, even for iPhones. If you're willing to pay fullprice for an iPhone, you have a lot of flexibility for your wireless service.

I have done so previously. Based in the uk as I am I'm not too dispobdent about consumer protection laws as I think they offer good protection. What does upset me is companies trying to limit their liability by pointing to warranties running out as if that's all that matters and some posts on this thread were reinforcing the perception companies like to portray.

That said, the protection offered elsewhere may not be so good, although actually taking such companies to court on these matters would be interesting in any jurisdiction.

It is one thing to talk warranty when hardware is the issue. The WiFi issue is clearly a software issue and that is Apple's responsibility. Too many folks are describing the same issue with the 4s and the timing of the issue (post 7 upgrage) is no coincindence. For years the Apple faithful have bashed Microsoft for rushing software to market and releasing buggy code and rightfully so. Has Apple now fallen into the same trap?

RobOcken wrote:

It is one thing to talk warranty when hardware is the issue. The WiFi issue is clearly a software issue and that is Apple's responsibility. Too many folks are describing the same issue with the 4s and the timing of the issue (post 7 upgrage) is no coincindence. For years the Apple faithful have bashed Microsoft for rushing software to market and releasing buggy code and rightfully so. Has Apple now fallen into the same trap?

If you read more about this issue, and do some research on this very forum, you'll discover that this wi-fi greyed out issue has been around for much longer than the iOS 7 update. It was reported during iOS 5 AND iOS 6.

In virtually every case, reinstalling the software does not resolve the issue, but repalcing the hardware does. Therefore, the logical conclusion, just from that very, very basic observation, is that the problem is the hardware, not the software.

My iPhone 4S acted up when I updated to iOS 7.0.4. At first, the wifi was not connecting properly, then the button was slowly responding up to the point when it was totally greyed out.

My problem is we do not have an Apple repair center where I live so I have to send my phone to them which cost me more than the amount I purchased the phone for. Plus the fact that it was purchased by my father in the middle east whilst I am in south east Asia. My provider won't help me because I did not purchased the phone from them.

You may ask why I don't use mobile data? I am on prepaid and mobile data is very expensive yet the connection is extremely slow. 4G and LTE are not widely available in my country. So wifi is the best option for me if I needed a faster and better connection. I only had my phone less than a year when this happened. I tried following the troubleshooting steps, created a ticket for the issue, checking reviews, articles and even videos in Youtube but none of them worked. I tried to downgrade the firmware to a different version but with no luck. I have not tried jailbreaking my phone though because I do not want to make the situation worst than it is.

Reading all the comments, the Apple team did not even bother to help all of us. The very least comment on how this issue can be resolved. No one bother to see how their consumers are doing.

After less than a year of using a perfectly functioning device and almost 5 months of not being able to connect to wifi finally another update is here. The final piece of puzzle I needed to confirm how inefficient this device is. If this does not work then I should consider going for an Android device.

Apple does not monitor these forums, so expecting a response on this thread is futile.

The fact that you paid a subsidized price for your iPhone purchased from a carrier is irrelevant. I can buy an iPhone 5S 64GB today from AT&T for $399. But the full retail price is $849. The fact that AT&T gives you a $450 discount is not relevant to the fact that the out-of-warranty replacement cost of $269.

Full retail price: $849

AT&T's subsidized price (with two-year contract): $399

Apple's out of warranty replacement fee: $269

Apple has always required that service from Apple be performed in the country of device origin. The fact that you were not aware of that is your responsibility, not Apple's.

Next time, educate yourself on the terms of the warranty on a product that you purchase, and avoid this kindof problem.