iPhone Xs Max poor cell phone reception fix?

Great news. I returned my phone to Apple prior to 14 days and they replaced it with new one out of box, logs stated I had more than normal call dropouts. New phone is fine, previous handset must have had a hardware fault. Now that’s what I call premium support. 👍

After many hoops I had a schedule at the apple store in Jackson,Ms. They evaluated my phone looked up my att case number and realized it was my antenna that was bad. They gave me a new xs max. It’s 10x better.

The iOS 12.1 update solved my problems! New modem firmware and carrier updates fixed the LTE problems and my WiFi speed at home has jumped from 300mbps to 400 to 500. I didn’t even know my WiFi was ”slow”.

I just got off the phone with apple and AT&T again. I’m going this weekend to the apple store to exchange my xs max for a different one. I was told it hardware not software. The apple rep then said if the second iPhone does the same thing to call back with my case number and they will open a case with the engineers as a hardware failure. I will update soon.

At this point, no one outside of Apple really knows if this is a hardware problem with the phone's design (e.g., the antenna) or software (e.g., baseband chip firmware) or a combination of both. The WiWavelength blog's analysis of the FCC filing by Apple notes that the antenna used in the XS phones has lower gain than other iPhones. Antenna gain affects both the transmitted signal and the received signal. If antenna gain is low, you can increase power to overcome it but this probably won't be acceptable in a cell phone since the FCC places limits on power output. It would also destroy battery life. I haven't seen any analysis of the FCC data other than the one by WiWavelength and I don't know how much weight to give that person's opinion. Poor antenna design probably can't be overcome with software tweaking. But it's hard to imagine that Apple's engineers designed a poorly performing antenna unless they had to compromise to meet some industrial design limitations imposed by Apple's industrial design department.

Regarding software, some have suggested that the XS phones are prioritizing bands that in theory should afford faster LTE data transmission, but those bands can have more limited range. A comparison would be like 5 GHz WiFi offering faster data throughput, but more limited range than 2.4 GHz WiFi. The phone should automatically switch to a stronger, slower band signal when the faster band is weaker, but that might not be happening. This may be why temporarily putting the phone in airplane mode can make the phone grab the stronger, slower signal for a short time before switching over to the weaker band. If this is the problem, it should be fixable in a software update.

I have an XS Max that has very poor LTE data speeds on the Verizon network when I'm in areas showing one or two bars on the phone. Verizon gave me a new SIM card and I reset the network settings to see if it would solve the problem, but that hasn't made a difference. My return window is up in one week, and I need to decide whether to gamble that Apple can address this in software. I like everything else about the phone, but it needs to be a phone first.

It could very well be that the iPhone is locking on to a weaker band on the tower than the strong band. Each tower has multiple bands, ones that are stronger than the other ones on the same tower. If for some reason the phone is prioritizing the weaker band over the stronger band, that can be fixed with FW. So you really can't compare the amount of bars on one phone to another phone and say the one with the more amount of bars has a better modem or antenna. Too many variables to know for sure. But if the iPhone is indeed being directed by the FW, or even the carrier to prioritize the weaker band, we should be either getting a carrier or iOS update soon. My guess since it's happening on multiple carriers, it will have to come from Apple. It reminds me of old DOS computer language and the misuse of "if" in the string of commands. If/Or in the wrong order could create a mess.

People not having issues may be in an area that is not using the newest bands that the iPhone can connect with. The older bands may indeed be stronger and more reliable at this time, until the carriers get all the bugs worked out.

The only thing that has been reported is that Apple is investigating the issue and has collected some log files from those affected. It is very important for anyone with the problem to contact Apple support. Posting here doesn’t inform Apple but calling and opening a case with them does. The more information they have, the sooner they can get a resolution in place.

Please contact Apple Support and open a ticket. Or at the very least, call them with your issue. They need to hear from everyone having this issue.

Do you have data roaming enabled? It was off with my phone, and when I enabled it, my reception did improve.

I’ve had similar cellular performance issues with my new Xs Max. Interestly, the performance in areas with a strong signal is vastly improved, while the performance in areas with a weak signal is vastly decreased. In the weak areas (like where my house is) the coverage has dropped from 2 bars to 1 to no bars at all. in the exact same chair in my house I get around 5Mbps on my 8Plus, I get .5mbps on my Xs! T Mobile btw...

The WiFiperformance was the same as the 8 Plus until I did a reset network settings and and it jumped up nicely from about 250mbps to 400mbps.

It's been written up in major tech (and non-tech) media, including The Verge, BusinessInsider, and ZDnet.

But having said that, it would still be helpful for people to report this issue to Apple Support, to add more data that might help pinpoint what is going wrong.

Please return it then.

If a device doesn't do what you want it to, no one wants you to keep it.

Personally the reception on mine blows away my X, and I haven't even held an iPhone 6S since 2016.

If you're that unhappy, return the phone, that's why there is a 14 day return policy.

If you want Apple to know about this, you can contact them directly:

http://apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

This is a user-to-user forum — we don't speak for or to the company.

F308 wrote:

I have the iPhone XS and I have the same connectivity issue with a very poor cell signal. I have 1 or 2 bar with the iPhone XS in places where I have 3-4 bar with the old iPhone 5.

Remember, bars are not an absolute measurement between devices, they are only to indicate relative strength on that particular device.

For example the same signal strength could be depicted as "full bars" on one phone could but could very well be displayed as two of four in strength on a different phone.

It's meant to display "how good is my signal on this device here?"