Set preferred Wi-Fi network in my preferred order on iOS6

This is not a solution to the specific problem but setting the same SSID and Password to the two networks will make your phone connect to the better one automatically. At least that works for me with quite a few Routers at home.

This is really a constant pain in the rear. Whenever I return to my downtown apartment, my phone connects to some "xfinitywifi" ssid instead of my own home network. I don't realize this until I try to use an app like Skype and get a crappy connection.

My poor parents, who are not tech savvy, have the same thing happen to them *all the time* and have to call me on the phone to talk them through switching their access point.

Apparently the "iPhone Configuration Utility" Mac utility used to let us change the priority order for access points on iOS devices. That app is now missing from where it used to be: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465

Please, Apple. Give us a way to fix this vexing and time-wasting problem.

trentbrown wrote:

This is really a constant pain in the rear. Whenever I return to my downtown apartment, my phone connects to some "xfinitywifi" ssid instead of my own home network. I don't realize this until I try to use an app like Skype and get a crappy connection.

My poor parents, who are not tech savvy, have the same thing happen to them *all the time* and have to call me on the phone to talk them through switching their access point.

You should contact your ISP. There is a way on their end that they can give your home router precedence over the public xfinitywifi site. The other option is to "forget" the xfinity site in Settings.

+1 for it being absurd, if not obscene, that Apple hasn't fixed this issue yet.

Is there a solution to this yet? Could somebody from Apple please respond? This should be a very simple piece of code to write and put in an update.

Dskillic wrote:

Is there a solution to this yet? Could somebody from Apple please respond? This should be a very simple piece of code to write and put in an update.

And yet, it hasn't been implemented, and you seem not to have read the Terms of Use of this forum that state that Apple does not participate in these forum discussions.

This is a user-to-user technical assistance forum. If you want to provide feedback to Apple, go to www.apple.com/feedback. If you want to speak to someone from Apple, use the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page.

If you, and they, just forget the network they don't want to connect to this problem will go away.

Dskillic wrote:

Is there a solution to this yet? Could somebody from Apple please respond? This should be a very simple piece of code to write and put in an update.

You really don't understand ANYTHING about software development, do you? Any manufacturer gets thousands of requests that are a very simple piece of code to write and put in an update. But you don't EVER put in even a simple piece of code and release it to 500 million devices just like that. First, even a simple piece of code can have unanticipated side effects, so it's necessary to test it. By thousands of users over several weeks to several months. And with thousands of requested changes, you need to prioritize them. So they are all put in a list and ranked, by how useful the marketing and engineering team thinks it would be, and also by how many requests they have received for the simple piece of code. Then they decide how many they can package into a candidate release. Next they then draw a line through the list. Everything above the line is put into a candidate release, and tested internally. If it pases this "alpha" test it is distributed to beta testers. For an Apple product there are thousands of beta testers (for an upcoming release of iOS there will be 3 million beta testers). Frequently in testing an enhancement has unexpected side effects, so it is dropped from the release. It may be reconsidered later, or it may not. This is what happened to dynamic wallpaper in iOS 8. It used too much power and slowed down iOS. So they gave it up. Even though it was a simple piece of code.

Your requested feature may or may not be in a future release. You'll know when it is, because it will be listed in the release notes.

As noted, Apple NEVER responds in this user to user forum to questions like yours. Apple doesn't even read the forum on a regular basis, and never officially.

Thanks for the lesson on software development Larry. Unfortunately, though, it misses the point.

This "little bit of code" has been requested over and over again by users on many forums, including Apple's feedback page. It has been wished for, I assume, by many 10's of thousands. Its omission makes the iPhone less usable for a significant percentage of its users, and causes fury in the minds of many of them. It was first requested many iOS releases ago. AND, iOS is the only OS I know of that doesn't deal with this Correctly (YES, Correctly....this omission is a BUG, not a feature). Apple should long ago have taken THIS issue through the process you describe and have fixed this problem.

Those that say "just forget the network you don't want" don't get it. The problem is that we want BOTH networks....we just prefer one over the other when we have the choice. When we don't, we want to log onto whichever we can get to without having to enter credentials every time we must use the less preferred one.

This problem has become more and more pervasive with commodity wifi networks, like Comcast's Xfinity, covering more and more areas. I can see two Xfinity networks while my MacBook is in my own home, but I'd never want to connect to them there. I, of course, want to use my own wifi. But when I go into town, just two blocks away from my home, I can no longer connect to my own wifi, and so I want to use Xfinity. This ought to just happen seamlessly on iOS, like it does on my Android device and my Mac (and probably on Windows and Linux too). I should be able to say to my iPhone "try to find my wifi first, and fall back to Xfinity if you can't find mine". It's a perfectly obvious behavior for many people to want, and one that iOS should provide like every other OS on the planet does. And yet, Xfinity wins over my own wifi in my home, and I can't change that, so I end up on the slower network that can't get to my file server. GGGGGRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! And I'm in the top 1% of the iPhone user population in terms of computer knowledge. I know what the problem is at least. What about those in the bottom 75% who just have no clue as to what's going on? Again, it's obscene that this problem is still left unaddressed.

Hmmm... The degree of usefulness and sympathy here seems to be in inverse proportion to each commenter's points level. :-)

I fully realize that Apple employees probably don't read these postings. I did take the time to submit my information through proper channels (www.apple.com/feedback), but, as always, that was an unsatisfying experience, as there is never any response.

Hearing that I am not alone in my suffering (thanks, "TitsUp") does make me *feel* better, though.

trentbrown wrote:

Hmmm... The degree of usefulness and sympathy here seems to be in inverse proportion to each commenter's points level. :-)

I fully realize that Apple employees probably don't read these postings. I did take the time to submit my information through proper channels (www.apple.com/feedback), but, as always, that was an unsatisfying experience, as there is never any response.

Hearing that I am not alone in my suffering (thanks, "TitsUp") does make me *feel* better, though.

Actually, it is in inverse proportion to the adherence of the rules of this forum by those posters.

This forum is not for feature requests. Once the technical answer has been given; "That is not a feature of the iOS. Please submit feedback for this feature request to the correct channel: www.apple.com/feedback", then continued posts that are simply complaining about the lack of the feature or trying to debate whether or not it can be implemented, or the ease with which it could be implemented, those are patently useless & pointless.

Here's how it works:

This forum is for technical assistance. That can include asking if something is possible: "Is there a setting that can do this?" "How can I do this?"

If it is possible for that to be done, then advice will be given. If it is not possible for that to be done, either an explanation of why it cannot be done, a recommendation to submit feedback, or sometimes a simple 'no' will be given.

Once that's been provided, unless someone can counter that with, "Actually, it can be done within the iOS and here's how" (meaning someone that gave the technical answer previously was wrong about it), then no further discussion is relevant.

"Why hasn't Apple done this yet?"

"Come on Apple, make this happen!"

"I think it should be a feature."

All of these are irrelevant.

You ask a technical question.

You get an answer.

If the answer is correct, then you move on.

If it is not correct and someone can offer a correct answer, they may provide that correction.

Complaining about it not being possible, debating on whether or not it should be added, ranting against Apple about it not being a feature... all of these are a waste of the poster's time.

"Hearing that you are not alone in your suffering making you *feel* better" is irrelevant. This is a technical support forum. Not an emotional support forum.

We're not here to make you 'feel better'. This isn't a therapy group. This forum is to get technical assistance.

You want to vent? You want to complain? You want to gripe? Go to another forum, or give feedback to Apple.

Does that clear it up for you? Stay within the parameters of the purpose of this forum, and it is highly unlikely you will receive any replies that are distressing to you.

And just FYI, it's not just 'complaints' that get directed to go elsewhere or to give feedback to channel. There have been multiple threads where the OP doesn't have a technical question; instead they want to say how happy they are with a product or feature of Apple's. And those ALSO get directed to provide that feedback in the appropriate channel.

So, whether someone says, "I love my new iPhone 6 Plus! The screen is nice and big and it makes it easy to see! Thanks, Apple!!" OR "I hate that the iPhone doesn't let me pick the order of my wi-fi connections!"... BOTH of those would and should (and usually are) directed to give that feedback to Apple.

Why? Because neither of those are technical assistance questions. Therefore, they don't belong on this forum. If you don't like the intended purpose of this forum... go to another forum.

Here's hoping that assists you with understanding the nature of this forum. Good luck in the future.

yexcnw wrote:

Thanks for the lesson on software development Larry. Unfortunately, though, it misses the point.

No, YOU miss the point. There are thousands of other requests that are equally or even more important than this one TO THE PEOPLE WHO REQUEST IT. Just because this is your most pressing need it doesn't mean that other people are not sincerely convinced that their enhancement should take precedence over everyone else's. Including this one. You mentioned tens of thousands of people who want it. I've seen posts from tens, not tens of thousands. You are in no position to impute the desires of people who haven't said anything about it. Yes, it would be a nice feature. So far in 7 years I have not found its lack to be a serious inconvenience.

I've glossed over the fact that this is not just a few "simple lines of code." This is a major rewrite of the WiFi network search feature. (I have written network management code). An iPhone sees hundreds or thousands of WiFi networks in a day. A computer generally sees the same networks, day in, day out. So maintaining a list of a dozen or so networks and ranking them is no big deal. I do it on my Macbook, but most users don't even know they CAN rank their WiFi networks. It's a well-hidden feature, on the Advanced tab in Network Settings. Most users are (rightly) terrified of clicking an "Advanced" button. But to do the same thing with all of the networks an iPhone encounters in a day is a much bigger job, both for iOS and for the user.

Sometimes, it seems like just because someone learned BASIC in high school, or knows how to use a Photoshop filter, all of a sudden they're a programming expert.

This is the double-sided sword of technology. It's gotten to the point where it is (usually) incredibly user-friendly and easily integrated into out lives, that some of those that are simply users (and there's nothing wrong with that, users!) don't seem to fathom the underlying complexity.

At least it seems to be infecting other endeavors. After watching a few cooking shows, some of my friends think they can whip up a gourmet feast. Who needs years of culinary school lessons or experience in a professional kitchen? Pfft!

Hey, that reality show about military operatives training looks easy. I bet I can run five miles with a 50 lbs pack! Who needs to spend hours upon hours upon hours with physical conditioning first? Pfft!

Well, it surprises me that this devolved so interestingly, but I think that I may have an answer.

So, trying to solve this same issue for myself, I went stumbling around my network settings. Lo an behold, it appears that by going into the "Advanced" section of Wi-Fi on my MacBook and dragging the networks into the preferred order there, the settings have (apparently?) synced to my iPhone. I no longer seem to be having issues with my phone connecting to my less desirable network. To be fair, the less desirable network has always been on the far end of my range so maybe my phone is now simply detecting it less, but it seems to be doing the trick by setting the priority list on my MacBook.

Cheers 🙂

You are in no position to impute the desires of people who haven't said anything about it.

I admit that I'm not in a strong position to discuss relative desires for any particular "feature", as my statistical sample is admittedly miniscule. But I've asked maybe a dozen people who have iPhones if A) they connect to home wifi, and B) if they've had this problem. Of the maybe half that connect their phones to their home wifi, EVERY ONE knew of this PROBLEM. That of course means little. Maybe I happened to find the only other 6 people in the world who've seen this problem (well then, there's trentbrown, so there are at least 8 of us all together). I actually am not that bothered by this feature, but I am bothered by buggy feature design that persists release after release. Note I said PROBLEM above. If you are bothered by this, you don't consider it a missing feature, but rather see it as a flaw in the OS. It's a BUG!

I've glossed over the fact that this is not just a few "simple lines of code." This is a major rewrite of the WiFi network search feature. (I have written network management code). An iPhone sees hundreds or thousands of WiFi networks in a day.

This is not a major rewrite of anything. We programmers know that there's no such thing in a mass-market OS as "a few simple lines of code", but this is a relatively simple thing to fix. The iPhone is already, by definition, remembering all the wifi networks it is able to log onto for me without asking for my credentials. All it's not doing is being smarter, or allowing me to tell it how to be smarter, about how it walks that list of networks it has remembered the credentials for. That IS a simple problem. There's already a data structure that exists to hold the remembered networks. UI aside, it's simply a matter of keeping that list in a particular order, something programmers do as second nature all the time. So the complexity in fixing this is simply adding a UI element that displays the list and lets me rank it by dragging items around. Not hard. I know. I've written a number of iOS as well as Android apps. Or, even easier...just rank the list by how often I forcibly override the iPhone's choice in networks. That would do it. I do that with exactly ONE network, MINE. It's always the right choice if it's available. The iPhone should get that. And gosh, that might actually involve nearly "just a few simple lines of code".

Just because this is your most pressing need it doesn't mean that other people are not sincerely convinced that their enhancement should take precedence over everyone else's.

It's a BUG in a $800 piece of hardware, and at least 8 people dislike that. We 8 want to see it fixed. We can want that. Sure we can. Did I ever say WHEN it should be fixed...no. I'm just reacting, and having fun doing it, to what's already been said. Again, this is a BUG. It's existed for a long time. Apple should have fixed it by now.

--------------

Sorry to all you folks that are still here after writing one of the small posts at the start this thread, either asking for help, looking for sympathy, or offering assistance in either regard. This thread was cruising along just fine with fairly small and perfectly reasonable posts (including mine of a mere 15 words) until, at 5:50 on March 7, Larry here decided to lecture us all on our lack of software development knowhow, writing 310 negative words against poor Dskillic's 29. My posts are directed at Larry, and I'm truly sorry if the rest of you are stuck in the middle. But blame Larry. It's his war. As soon as his lecture started, this thread was dead. Nobody still here and reading this wants anything but to bask in the warmth of a good thread war.

....fan...fan...fan... (if you want me to stop fanning the flames Larry...just stop talking)