iPhone XS Max Weak 5GHz WIFI Reception

the Apple tech I spoke with seemed surprised that the issue continued for me after restoring and setting up as new. The other night I forgot my wireless network at home on my iPhone XS Max, removed my phone as a connected device from within my routers web portal admin settings, and then hard reset my iPhone and restarted my router. Once everything else was back online, I rejoined my home network and after 5-15 or so minutes of being connected to Wi-Fi, things started behaving normally. But then by the morning, while still connected to my routers 5GHz network, my connection speeds were a fraction of my iPhone X right next to it. Tried in a few different spots.

Also reading in these comments about people getting shipped a new phone, or a later revision of the iPhone XS Max? Mine was delivered early launch day from a preorder at 2am..

Motyoj wrote:

The Max we have was preordered the first day but didn’t arrive until Tuesday. I think I am going to give up on the voodoo and just see if Apple can fix this with an update. The phone works pretty well but not like it should. It’s my wife’s phone and it doesn’t seem to bother her as much as it does me.

Personally, I think that's a smart move. Apple will take care of everyone. And they're magicians with software. Threads like this are interesting, but they also get people stirred up. People are now downloading speed tests and getting all worked up. I'm not saying that having less then the most stellar Wifi and Cellular connections shouldn't be the goal. But having been around here through many generations of iPhone launches, every single new device. EVERY ONE, has had some issues at launch for SOME, not all people. And every time Apple releases updates that ultimately reduce or completely eliminate any of the teething problems a new launch is inevitably going to create.

I can say with confidence that it isn't an iOS 12 issue. My iPhone 7, my wife's iPhone 7+, my iPhone X and both iPad Pro models are all on iOS 12 with absolutely no issues whatsoever. All of those devices are extremely fast, connect and hold wifi/LTE signals and have amazing throughput. The ONLY issues I have are with my iPhone Xs Max's. As I said in my last reply, my second iPhone Xs Max (that I purchased to test) is much much faster and reliable with signals than the first one... but still nowhere near the speed and signal strength of all of my older Apple devices (all running iOS 12).

Again... this implies a major QC issue.

For me after lots of experimentation last two days I find that cell in strong to medium areas for me is much faster than earlier iphones including my X. At my house I have typically one bar but never measured the strength of signal before (did not know about that test you can do with the phone to open test mode). Occasionally I have two bars. I am AT&T with old grandfathered unlimited and still cheaper than new so called unlimited plans. But my kids Verizon also gets similar signal here on this side of town half mile from interstate so it is just the lack of good towers near us. Anyway with all other phones and this Xs now I still get good phone calls at this level and with texting no problems. I always used my Wifi to locally enhance my internet use with data intensive apps though, the Xs is same

The only place I have issues with my Wifi especially the 5ghz is outside of my house— especially with my office to the farther away from where I am (more outside wall, and internal rooms between me and wifi router). But that has always been the case. And when I come home and reconnect before going in door my iphones (all of them including X) would grab the 2.4 ghz band and stay on it until I went and choose the band (I have them separated so I can do that).

What has gotten worse however is that in the outside area with all my previous iphones before the Xs the weak Wifi and or cell (I am in weak cell area so I rely on wifi a lot) I could still do data intensive apps with out them failing do to internet connections or never making connections like I am finding with my Xs. Calls always worked on the weak one to two bar cell signal (never tested it before what strength was) and they still do fine with myXs. But now if I want to do a data intensive app it is hard to do in this spot in front yard — cell does not help and I usually was connecting thru the Wifi - even though it showed 1-2 bars no problem with previous phones.

It thus for me just requires a different spot in yard with in house even at farthest distance (and lowest bars of Wifi — one bar maybe two) my Wifi speeds are as good as ever. I am unfortunately on next to lowest service with ISP and get about 75-80 mb down and 8-10 up so my limit has been that and it still works fine at that. However I did a test with a new app to me called Wi-Fi sweet spots. Rather than uploading to the AirPort Extreme and going out through my comcast cable modem it is testing speeds to the airport. In the test next to the router vs farthest in house I was getting from 1200 to 200-300 MB’s so there is a decline with distance probably though would have been similar but til this issue never tested with this app so was only looking at the speeds that my ISP plan allows in/out house for down/uploads. And testing outside in bad spot of front yard I am getting 10 or under mbs so its very weak now. Wondering if the aluminum siding on my house is causing issues with the sensitivity of my antenna on my Xs to my Wifi based on some discussions I had with someone about being able to bounce the Wifi outside if I put a foil covered board behind behind my airport? I may be all wet with this idea but that discussion with guy got me thinking about the one issue I have.

Aungen wrote:

My fix was this: Turn LTE off. And now I can use 4G successfully. That's a terrible fix, but it's working for me right now.

Turning LTE off is an option provided by your carrier.

AT&T, for one, does not provide that ability any longer.

If you haven't actually had a phone call or an email then you haven't communicated with a senior advisor. My first contact came from a post I made on Twitter. I highly recommend that route. And then after posting here I got my second phone call from another advisor with AppleCare. I am not exactly thrilled with what appears to be a weaker wifi reception on the device but it has not led to any functional issues for me. If it had I would then have to make a decision about returning for a replacement. But I do feel that if you can reach a tolerable state and can wait for them to do something officially they will take care of this, one way or another. These are their premier devices and they're not going let some widespread issue smear the debut of these phones. The fact that two separate individuals called and emailed me, and I don't have the issue others are reporting, heartens me.

William Kucharski wrote:

Out of curiosity, how are you quantifying "WiFi issues?"

For example, on my XS Max, I don't see signal strength issues per se, but I do see speed issues, and that's because there definitely does seem to be an issue where if an AP offers both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz service (in my case an 802.11ac Time Capsule) the device will prefer the 2.4 GHz connection even if the AP it's five feet away from offers nice clean 80 MHz wide 5 GHz channels it could connect to, thus limiting overall speed.

I haven't run into any LTE/cellular issues; I see similar signal strength to my X, and anywhere I have issues with signal I had the same issues with my X.

Just my observation, but in keeping up with this thread, many of the "factual" data people are offering are results from speed tests, which are not often super accurate. We're seeing as usual when an issue becomes discussed over and over a lot of couch engineering going on.

So, here's how I can say I'm not having any issues. My LTE is better with my XS Max than my X. I sometimes had calls drop on my X. I've yet to have a call drop on my XS Max. If I can make and receive phone calls without issue, it's working for my needs. As to Wifi, I'm not that bothered about running speed tests. I've had my devices forget the 2.4ghz band since I got my X. So at home, my phone ONLY connects to the 5ghz band. I've had no issues streaming from music (Pandora), video (Netflix and YouTube), updating apps, surfing the net or doing anything that I did on my X. In fact, I've found the actual use to be faster/zippier (if that's a reasonable adjective). I don't need a speed test to tell me my phone is operating well, because my phone IS operating well.

The bottom line is, thus far, I'm experience a great experience on my iPhone XS Max. That's really all that matters to me. Does it do what I want it to do when I want it to do it. So far, it's exceeded my expectations.

If other's aren't having the same experience, I can certainly understand the disappointment. I would ask some who are running speed tests over and over, if they couldn't run one and just could use their phone normally, would they even know they had a problem. Those with dropped calls and poor internet connections would say something's wrong and they should. But for some others I wonder if they aren't having dropped calls and are having acceptable online performance, why they are concerned?

Eracorp wrote:

I also have problems with the WiFi in my xs. It’s keep disconnecting and also is pretty slow, need to turn off and on to solve the problem but not for long.

That I most definitely do not see and sounds like it could be an issue with your Wi-Fi router.

Interesting you should mention Verizon. There's an article today on 9to5 Mac, which states the largest number or people they've heard from with these issues are on the Verizon network.

I'm on AT&T. Everything's working fine on my phone.

Verizon is affected. Badly. For the cellular side. As far as wifi, whole other issue. Something to do with telecommunications and soon to be obsolete CDMA settings in the phone which were deleted entirely from apple. I’d say 50% Verizon and 50% apple to blame. However, I am using my X I just went back to. Zero issues. 3 XS’s..... all duds.

StevenDBS wrote:

Not for me. My ATT xsmax is far worse on both wifi and cell

That's a shame. My XS Max is far superior with cell connection than my X ever was. And I'm on AT&T. One of the best examples I can recite is with my X, on my drive home, there is a dead spot that would disconnect EVERY call I might be in when I drove through that spot. Now with XS Max, I have yet to have a call drop in the same spot.

Another example of better cellular performance is in my home. While I live in a metro location and there are cell towers all over the place, the construction of my home made reception in my home poor. I used to have a Micro-Cell, but with AT&T stopping support of them, I switched over to Wifi Calling which actually works really well. I've noticed I'm not on Wifi calling at home as often as I was with my X.

I'm still not experiencing any Wifi issues on my XS Max.

Thanks rbrylawski. Mine doesn't say if its 2.4 or 5. I go to settings>wifi and it only lists the one I have logged into. I'm just not sure if I have my router configured to 2.4 or 5, or both....

Its a d-link AC5300.

I guess I'll have to go to their website for more insight. Is there a way to tell on my phone what frequency I'm on?

Your router should have a web portal, sometimes it’s 10.0.0.1 or maybe 192.168.0.1 or something. The IP Address. Find out from the manufacturer how to log in (username is maybe “admin”, and maybe blank password or “password” or something. Again, refer to manufacturer), and you should be able to see each network’s MAC Address. They both probably start with the same info, but end in something different. I use Network Analyzer Pro to find my network details:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/network-analyzer-pro/id557405467?mt=8

But, the xFi iOS app can tell you, too (if you have Comcast).

I don't believe this is an iOS12 issue either. I have an iPad running iOS12 which gets better than double the network performance of my XS Max when sitting right next to it on the table. I've confirmed in my Access Point's management interface that the XS will not connect to any 5Ghz bands while the iPad has no problem.

I've got a support ticket open with Apple now, but I am running out of time on my hardware return window.

Hello everyone.

On my end what I am noticing with the XS Max is that when staying in a good signal area the connectivity and speed is acceptable and comparable to my iPhone X. But when moving in the street, many many times the phone takes good one or two minutes to be able to connect to the internet, then usage is normal for a while, if I keep moving this happens again. I am not an expert on how connection works but a wild guess is that when changing serving antennas the phone is not “reconnecting” well to the different serving antennas or something alike. With my iPhone X using the same network provider I don’t have this issue.

As I said, wild guess, by no means I know how this works but it is a guess, just providing my feedback.

Note: this has happened in the UK and in Spain as I have used the phone in both places and with same result.