I consistently get only 1 to 2 bars on my XS Max in locations where my 7 Plus had 4. I took the phone to AT&T, who did a SIM card change; no difference. They also reset Network Settings; no change. So they told me I needed to call 611 and have a network tech look into the problem while it was occurring. I did that as I left the AT&T store. After 20 minutes of remote testing, they told me it wasn’t their problem and I should take the phone to an Apple Store.
At the Apple Store, they started by taking my SIM card and installing it in an older phone, which had full strength ... not the SIM card. Then they did a full factory reset, no change. They swapped the phone for a new one. The new one started out at 3 bars, so I left, but within minutes it had dropped back to 1. I also updated to iOS 12.1 beta 2 when I got home to see if it had a fix; no change.
I tried to make another Genius Bar appointment, but when I identified the problem, the Apple support site wanted to do a call with a tech instead of letting me make an appointment. I got routed to a second level tech who told me Apple is aware of the issue and investigating, and asked if would I provide data from my phone for their engineers. I did, and it ended up being an hour long call while she took me through installing remote diagnostic profiles, multiple reboots, toggling WiFi on and off, Airplane Mode on and off, taking a gazillion screenshots of every step, and finally syncing to iTunes on my MacBook Pro and uploading the resulting gigabyte of log files and screenshots to Apple. And there were two 10 minute waits in the middle of it while the phone ran diagnostics. Thankfully the tech was delightful so those waits weren’t painful.
Hopefully others are doing the same and giving Apple data to solve the problem quickly.
Last week while on vacation, my husband's iPhone 7+ got more bars than my new iPhone Xs. The 7+, my old X, and my new iPhone Xs all have had trouble when leaving Wi-Fi and switching to LTE in a timely manner. Rebooting does correct it, but that process is annoying and time consuming to have to do that, especially if you are the driver.
Why don’t people just take defective units back? Why hold on to them?
I don’t understand either. If the $1200 you gave Apple had several defective $10s and $20s I’m willing to bet they wouldn’t just sit back and say “Oh well, that’s the way life is!”.
Maybe you are supposed to have two SIMs in your phone. One works half the time and the second the other half.
Well just looking at the indicator bars to understand signal strength is pretty much worthless. After Antenna Gate, Apple modified the code that displayed the bars to slow down their progression so it wasn't immediate when you lost signal by gripping the antenna too tightly. Not that is was terribly accurate to begin.
Need to use an app that shows you detailed cellular signal information but then you need to know how the system works to understand what you are looking at.
All that said, I am down a bar or two more than normal at home but with Carrier - WiFi support it's fine. At work, we have repeaters in the ceiling hooked into a direct fiber line back to the carrier so we all get maximum 4G LTE all the time. I bet the repeaters could be upgraded to support the newer radios in the X / XS iPhones so it would be even better.
I consistently get only 1 to 2 bars on my XS Max in locations where my 7 Plus had 4. I took the phone to AT&T, who did a SIM card change; no difference. They also reset Network Settings; no change. So they told me I needed to call 611 and have a network tech look into the problem while it was occurring. I did that as I left the AT&T store. After 20 minutes of remote testing, they told me it wasn’t their problem and I should take the phone to an Apple Store.
At the Apple Store, they started by taking my SIM card and installing it in an older phone, which had full strength ... not the SIM card. Then they did a full factory reset, no change. They swapped the phone for a new one. The new one started out at 3 bars, so I left, but within minutes it had dropped back to 1. I also updated to iOS 12.1 beta 2 when I got home to see if it had a fix; no change.
I tried to make another Genius Bar appointment, but when I identified the problem, the Apple support site wanted to do a call with a tech instead of letting me make an appointment. I got routed to a second level tech who told me Apple is aware of the issue and investigating, and asked if would I provide data from my phone for their engineers. I did, and it ended up being an hour long call while she took me through installing remote diagnostic profiles, multiple reboots, toggling WiFi on and off, Airplane Mode on and off, taking a gazillion screenshots of every step, and finally syncing to iTunes on my MacBook Pro and uploading the resulting gigabyte of log files and screenshots to Apple. And there were two 10 minute waits in the middle of it while the phone ran diagnostics. Thankfully the tech was delightful so those waits weren’t painful.
Hopefully others are doing the same and giving Apple data to solve the problem quickly.
Ditto: TMobile Unlimited customer. Have a launch-day iPhone 7 (orig on VZ with Qualcomm modem) that I switches a year ago last week (they send a happy anniversary text 😘). Ordered a launch-day TMo Xs from Apple that consistently got same or worse speed and coverage from the 7.
I live on West Coast (CA) and work on East Coast (NJ), so I'm in multiple bigger cities each week and compared back and forth since TMo is just a sim swap. Speeds like 2mbps down and less up with 45ms ping in metros with 600mhz spectrum lit up.
Called Tmo and did a full troubleshoot (phones side by side, sim swaps, reset net settings - they determined handset was at fault. They bridged AppleCare in and a supervisor setup a genius appt with express replacement. Replaced the phone yesterday and same prob.
Called Apple Care on same issue today, escalated to Tier 2, did full log collection from phone under iOS 12.0, updated, full log collection under 12.0.1 including remote support session to laptop to grab log directory. Expect to hear back in 1-3 days.
My observation (just my opinion) is issues is in the baseband firmware and how radio goes-into and resumes-from lower power modes, seems to also have issues dropping wifi while asleep. Since I am on calls most of day and between coasts each week I'm hoping they ask to enable extra baseband logging - sooner they collect data sooner its fixed.
Other phone did have wireless charging issues - this one does not. It does still have signal issues over LTE after 12.0.1 update.
In mean time I am carrying both phones and swapping sims.
Comments
The 7+, my old X, and my new iPhone Xs all have had trouble when leaving Wi-Fi and switching to LTE in a timely manner.
Rebooting does correct it, but that process is annoying and time consuming to have to do that, especially if you are the driver.
Need to use an app that shows you detailed cellular signal information but then you need to know how the system works to understand what you are looking at.
All that said, I am down a bar or two more than normal at home but with Carrier - WiFi support it's fine. At work, we have repeaters in the ceiling hooked into a direct fiber line back to the carrier so we all get maximum 4G LTE all the time. I bet the repeaters could be upgraded to support the newer radios in the X / XS iPhones so it would be even better.
I live on West Coast (CA) and work on East Coast (NJ), so I'm in multiple bigger cities each week and compared back and forth since TMo is just a sim swap. Speeds like 2mbps down and less up with 45ms ping in metros with 600mhz spectrum lit up.
Called Tmo and did a full troubleshoot (phones side by side, sim swaps, reset net settings - they determined handset was at fault. They bridged AppleCare in and a supervisor setup a genius appt with express replacement. Replaced the phone yesterday and same prob.
Called Apple Care on same issue today, escalated to Tier 2, did full log collection from phone under iOS 12.0, updated, full log collection under 12.0.1 including remote support session to laptop to grab log directory. Expect to hear back in 1-3 days.
My observation (just my opinion) is issues is in the baseband firmware and how radio goes-into and resumes-from lower power modes, seems to also have issues dropping wifi while asleep. Since I am on calls most of day and between coasts each week I'm hoping they ask to enable extra baseband logging - sooner they collect data sooner its fixed.
Other phone did have wireless charging issues - this one does not. It does still have signal issues over LTE after 12.0.1 update.
In mean time I am carrying both phones and swapping sims.