Apple iPad owners report Wi-Fi connection issues - Page 3

By the way, is it true or bot that a jail broken phone with 3G fooler that makes 3G think it's wifi or with teethering, that you could, in theory, connect a wifi ipad via you iPhone?
Thanks.

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Dropped 1GB somewhere on the floor.

Can we have a volunteer to test out this hypothesis--Dremel tool please and a plastic strip

If it were a design flaw such as this, you'd expect that most all of the iPads would be having the problem.

Not quite the confirmation I was thinking. I saw these articles as well and they didn't seem quite definitive enough (not that we would get anything more definitive than this).

I bet of these "problems" are networks with MAC address protection on them. The internet is always full of people that no idea about basic networking, wireless or wired. When you ask them about what security and frequency they are running, they have no idea.

Hmmmm... it seems HP has responded with a new video (showing what some might be missing):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeDalRBjyJo

I've had some wifi rreeptions issues too, nothing to bad, but if i couldn't tether it to my iPhone it would be a problem.

I've had zero wifi problems with mine so far.

There's a "no DUH" moment if I saw one. I have had no issues with my dual band extreme, an old g only UFO base station and about five other wifi networks in various other public places like restaurants.

Also until reading the iFixit article I didn't realize the apple logo was plastic and where the wifi antennas are. I wonder how many have cases on their ipad thad have metal near the apple logo...

I believe that wireless is a pretty complicated technology with numerous factors that can affect it and that without a lot more detail than "my wifi cuts out" speculation about the root cause and whether it's a systemic design issue, user error or something in between is pretty fruitless.

Having said that it won't stop such speculation, nor the inevitable apple is stupid/apple is doomed comments. It's the way of the Internet

Hmm - no obvious way to get a copyright symbol on the virtual keyboard. I did discover some other interesting symbols as I held various keys down while looking.

There is never "adequate testing" when users are involved. The technology is way complex with thousands of permutations.

Not that I'm calling anyone a fool, but it is best exemplified by the old saying "the problem with making things foolproof is fools are so darned ingenious!"

Try DigiTimes @ http://www.digitimes.com/tag/tpk_tou...s/0016201.html

Not a paid subscriber so good luck.

Hmm - I wonder if some units could have something as simple as the antenna wire for the wifi off or loose. It's been seen as an issue with the bluetooth module in some Mac Pro's and antennas have been hooked up wrong in the dual band airport extremes (excellent article about that on smallnetbuilder.com)

I guess the bottom line is such performance is not normal so make an appointment and take it in!

Isn't it a little premature (day three for crying out loud!) to be going down the "design flaw" path? Too many (myself included) have had NO issues for it to be a systemic design flaw.


Indeed

Agreed, good post. Besides, it'd be something else if the glitches were known defects that the mfg. tries to hide.

Yeah. Well, solipsism is rather smart.

But the second part? That's all you.

Both are easily fixable. It's called, "wait for the 2nd Gen."

Seriously.

I really wanted to purchase one of these things, but I refuse to do so over one point: it has no camera and I want to video conference with it. Hopefully there will be intense pressuring on Apple over the next year to add this, such that they will break down and do it in Gen. 2. I think it is technologically feasible even if the so-called "camera mount" turned out to be the slot for the ambient light sensor.

And if the processor us actually too slow for video conferencing, perhaps a faster CPU is in order a year from now to address that. But for everything else, it appears that the iPads A4 is more than adequate.

All said, I'm waiting for Generation-2, albeit somewhat impatiently.

No issues here.... Took it to school today and took notes on it. Connected with UT's wifi without any problems.

Keeping my fingers crossed, though.

Haha... I remember those days. Hopefully Windows 7 addressed those issues.

I agree Apple can't test every possible scenario, but having it flat on a coffee shop table should certainly have been one of them. Apparently this means placing it face-down to get reception.


Again, is this Apple or Toyota?

Nothing, just grab your cup of coffee and Safari does the rest.

I've used mine numerous times now lying flat on a table in a restaurant or at home with no issue. It is highly unlikely that it is a systemic issue as I am hardly alone in my success. Rather than whining about it online take it into a nearby apple store or send it in to get it fixed/replaced. If you are someone who doesn't even own one, what exactly are you complaining about?


Is this a sincere question or dramatic hyperbole?

indeed

Click on the airport icon in the menu bar, select the appropriate network, type in the password if required an then I don't give it a second thought.

On my work windows laptop sometimes i have to use the native windows wifi manager, then on other wifi nets only the manufacturer provided wifi manager will work - it's VERY annoying and consistently inconsistent.

You mean, having no real argument of substance or anything new to bring to the table they are left to falling back to usual arguments that focus on individual and disjointed features rather than how their products experience is better than Apples?

What a shocker

It's a preference if you so desire. Not that I have mine enabled like that since it's so easy to just pick a net in one click.


Meh, even with posting what i did above its no more or no less an issue than connecting to any unsecured wifi. Just because I'm sitting in a starbucks doesn't mean a network with an SSID of starbucks is the "real" one. All open wifi networks should be assumed to be hostile.

I really don't see how what HP is doing is any different than what Apple does in the "Get a Mac" ads. However, I really don't believe HP has to discredit the iPad in order to succeed. If HP develops a quality product, the sales will be there. Personally, I don't want another laptop, which essentially is what a net book is. I like the idea of having something in between my iPhone and my Macbook Pro - and the iPad occupies that space beautifully. It's perfect for me.

Er, did you miss the part where i mentioned each situation is different

My point was that they may very well have tested it and everything was fine, but put it in your home and your tinfoil hat may interfere and cause a problem.

Not EVERYONE with an Apple router is having a problem, so obviously there are other factors involved

Actually, I did get your point. I probably should have responded to someone else - I was just trying to go with the flow of the conversation. No offense meant.

You're saying "if there is a design flaw" now. However, earlier you adamantly commenced with suspicion regarding Apple's motives (which indicates an attitude and a dubious claim):

Then you adamantly followed by:


Followed by the adamant implication that Apple is testing deficient:


Then adamantly criticized Apple's professionalism (in the face of numerous quality and customer satisfaction accolades):


Then more proselytizing:


Finally, you walk it back with if and then:


I'd say Solipsism's asinine characterization is appropriate.

a handful of folks will have issues, start up major threads everywhere and deem the ipad a total dud. happens every time. just like every time there's a batch of us that have no problems at all.

if ya not happy with apple buy a zuniepsd

the problem exists, but it is likely not nor will be as big as it seems on the boards. it will be like 2% of the users out there.


and there it starts.

of course as you are such a genius you know that the problem is with the ipad and not the routers being used (or how they were set up)


yes but could that be because all the 12-25 demo ipads, all the iphones, ipod touches and computers are using that same network at the same time.


don't judge the app by the in store demos they use images that are preset and someone could have hosed something


it's not unreasonable to expect a product to be tested. but it is unreasonable to expect a company to reproduce every one of thousands,even millions of combinations of hardware and software. how can Apple possibly know every single router someone might have and every single other tablet, desktop, laptop, smart phone they might have.

or every single other factor that could happen. perhaps these damaged ipads were online orders and perhaps they were kept in the wrong temperature storage or a giant freight pallet was knocked over at the warehouse and the antenna were jarred loose or some other something happened to them post testing.

and they can't test every single device. especially not when they are trying to produce huge amounts for a big event. so they randomly pick. and a few duds get through.

This happens on my iPhone. I assume this is a software related issue. They still have yet to fix it since 3.0 was released...

so far I've seen perhaps 25 comments of problems. that's like 0.008% of the ipads sold. far from a major problem.

in fact the support doc could have been caused by the stores asking if there was a way to improve connections for their demos and not actually by any customer complaints. cause with a couple dozen ipads, dozen or so iphones and another dozen ipod touches, plus 30 or so computers and any brought in by those folks in the class thing, that's a lot for a connection to handle.

I believe this is a software problem. It only happens to me using 3rd party apps. Hasn't happened in Safari or downloading over iTunes, etc...

It's interesting that people have been speculating about HW issues, software issues, Q&A issues, component supply issues....

The biggest issue in real-world wi-fi performance is RF propagation, and at higher frequencies, the problems multiply exponentially. I suspect that some HW & SW issues do exist, but the vast majority of performance problems are due to lack of signal strength, noise, and reflections. Reflections are particularly difficult to deal with, as they can fool you into thinking you've got great coverage... for a second. In urban environments, where a lot of steel, concrete and other RF reflecting/blocking infrastructure, a continuous stream of data packets can be very difficult to maintain. Not understanding how the technology actually works, many fairly intelligent folks point the blame at the HW or SW, when the implementation of the network and environment are actually to blame. And we haven't even discussed having multiple overlapping networks with different security protocols sharing the relatively narrow bandwidth assigned to these devices. The 802.11N 5 Ghz spec gives everyone some more wiggle room, until everyone starts using it.

That being said, Apple does have some problems with the software side of their wifi stack, and network configuration in general. I gladly confess ignorance of the inner workings of the software, but there are real issues. Authentication issues with some corporate networks, problems detecting and setting up printers shared in other OS's, DHCP with manual address not working correctly... I could go on with the issues I've experienced with OS X, and I've only been here since 10.5. I know they are software issues, because other OS's on the same hardware handle the tasks just fine.

It is very irritating to have audio recording set up on the mac side, but need to boot XP to authenticate to the college wireless network and upload the recording, but that's another issue.

A tiny fraction of customers will have issues with any product, and when there are 300,000 launch day customers, a tiny fraction of customers can make a very vocal minority. It isn't that complicated. Apple has had some legitimate issues in the past, but assuming that to be the case for this product would be premature at best.

50 Mb/s? Wow, that's fast.

A heads-up on WiFi data transmission rates, hardware and software configurations, and lots of other great guidance that I've found enormously useful.

http://smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/...the-essentials

Also,
http://smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/...w-80211n-speed

Hope it helps.

My neighbor and I are having issues with Verizon's FIOS router. When you turn on the iPad it sometimes asks which network you would like join (even though you were previously connected to a wifi network). In my case, it asks me if I would like to join my home network or my neighbor's which I have never connected to...

It's kind of annoying - I hope they fix this soon!

I'm curious what will happen with WiFi systems as portable devices become more pervasive. Most WiFi access points can handle a maximum of 25 users; hardened ones like Xirrus will do up to 64 per radio, and things like the Airport Express can only do 5-6.

I really enjoy running KisMac on my laptop to see what the issues are; it is a shame that the App Store bans WiFi "stumblers," as it often gives a user a chance to understand what the problem is relative to their device. Sure, there are "bad" uses of these devices, but they can really offer a lot of utility.

Barring that, I wish you could get Apple's diagnostic radio information up in a fashion that would be useful.