Will an update fix signal issues for XS and XS Max?

I bought an iPhone XS (for my wife) and XS Max (for me) on launch day. I’m now getting dropped calls (in places I’ve never dropped calls before), random undeliverable texts, poor LTE speeds (<1Mbps!!) and poor WiFi performance. Our older iPhone 6 and 7 Plus, which thankfully we still have, has better WiFi throughput in our house and gets a signal in all areas of the house. The newer phones lose signal in our bedroom sometimes, which is only 30 ft from the router. No more WiFi signal at our mailbox or even the front door. If an update will fix these problems, then I will wait. If not, or there are no guarantees, I will return them. We love everything else about the phones. We just need the cellular and WiFi performance issues resolved. Thanks.

Posted on Sep 26, 2018 4:51 PM

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jesus253

Level 1

11 points

Posted on Nov 1, 2018 8:40 PM

Man att charged me the restocking fee (1st phone I returned) although after chatting with a CS rep it was credited to my account. To tell you the truth I had to go through 6 phones to get one that was working (Still slower LTE than my 7 and wifi 5GHz after 50 ft goes down to 1 bar from 3 but way better than the ones before it) 12.1 final version did nothing in reality to my wife's phone as it is still slower than my 7 on LTE (My work XS does 30+ mbps download whereas my personal 7 pulls 90+) and on our Gigabit internet took her 1.5 hours to update 10 apps because I left the phone in our room and closed the door (17 apps needed to be updated overall) but today because I could not return it anymore I went to an apple store and exchanged hers and seriously hers is now as fast as my 7 on LTE, well 75 mbps CONSTANT and has a stronger connection over wifi than my works XS and faster too. I have written this before and I know it is a hassle but maybe exchanging them again would work for you. I know there are many people here telling you to wait and wait and wait for another update, dude when you can't use your gps, nor make calls longer than 2 min because it drops, nor load pages consistently, you can't be waiting for an update.

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112 replies

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,833 points

Dec 19, 2018 2:49 AM in response to Shrutirao9

I see none of that, so there is still some carrier/individual phone variability involved.

cyaford Author

Level 1

31 points

Sep 27, 2018 7:47 AM in response to taj275

Hello Taj. Thanks for the info on the bars, I always thought it was based on signal strength. My carrier is ATT. I’ve never had issues with their cellular service until recently switching phones. I’m thinking it’s not a coincidence since there are others having similar issues. Hopefully the issues get resolved soon.

cyaford Author

Level 1

31 points

Sep 29, 2018 6:48 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Good news! After talking to Apple Support, which was a MUCH better experience than my initial call, she had 2 suggestions. Removing and reinstalling the SIM card and, if that didn’t work, restore the phone as a new device through iTunes. The SIM card trick didn’t work. I then restored my XS M through iTunes. Download speeds were a little faster, although they were close enough to be a normal variance between testing. Upload speeds were much faster. On a 1G connection, I went from around 100Mbps, with a low of 80Mbps, to 300Mbps, with a high of 345Mbps. This is on par with my last iPhone. The bad news? LTE is still very slow. As in 0.00(?!?)Mbps down and 0.49Mbps up. All of the preceding tests were run on the speed test app with me sitting in the same spot in my living room, approximately 20’ from my router. I then went to our bedroom and saw a noticeable decrease in upload speeds. Although the speeds were higher than before I restored the phone, they are much lower than an iPhone 7S in the same spot. So there’s still an issue with poorer than expected performance as distance increases between the phone and router, but my issue with slow download speeds when only 20’ away from my router has been resolved.

aironvon

Level 1

8 points

Oct 10, 2018 7:53 PM in response to cyaford

I’ve been noticing where my XS Max just start “searching” for signal like all the towers have disappeared. I can usually restart and they come back on. I haven’t wanted to open a support case because all they ever seem to w to do is a factory reset of a device the wait a few days to see if it continues.

Oct 13, 2018 6:55 AM in response to JeroniZmo

JeroniZmo wrote:

agree. I think its better go for X 2017 or maybe wait few months.. or directly drop for the next generation.. FCC spoke clearly about this.. this new iphones have a poor signal, so... I keep with my X 2017 1 or 2 years more..

Can you back up your claim the FCC specifically addressed anything about these issues? I suspect you can't, but if you can, please post the article.

Oct 13, 2018 7:43 AM in response to JeroniZmo

I don't doubt some people are having LTE issues on their new phone. Virtually every aspect of the phone is controlled by software. I have every confidence Apple and the cell providers are working on an update which will make most people happy. It was widely reported a lot of the LTE issues were with Verizon. I'm on AT&T.

Oct 18, 2018 11:30 AM in response to cyaford

Just got mine in the mail and the first thing I’m noticing is long wait times before websites begin to load.

Weird ping/jitter issues as well. It’s not constant, only happens randomly. Very noticeable while browsing the web though, as sometimes websites just refuse to load unless I refresh them.

I have made sure to install 12.0.1 and I have reset network settings. I do not want to have to factory reset and start as new :/

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Will an update fix signal issues for XS and XS Max?