Painfully slow WiFi on new iPhone 5

scmaruthi said:

I'm experiencing the same problem.
But since this is limited to downloading Apps on the App store, I was wondering if the problem could be a issue related to port forwarding. Maybe the iPhone 5's App Store uses a new port number and not the standard HTTP port.

Click to expand...

This is the same problem that I am having. Extreme slowness in downloading apps and music. Everything else with wi-fi is OK.

It took me 3 hours to download 48 songs over wifi the other night and about 2 hours to download about 15 apps.

I figure I can go in and get a replacement phone from the Apple Store but I'm going to wait a little while and see if a software update will fix the problems.

I currently have a 32gb iPhone 5 but I started with a 16gb and didn't have any problems with that at all. I'm wondering if this wi-fi slowness might be related to hardware. Some people have reported that exchanging phones fixed the issue.

I noticed that there are two issues here.
Some ppl have slow wifi throughout..
Others which include me have slow wifi only with downloads from the App Store and iTunes.

I doubt the latter is a hardware issue...
This thread suggests to wait for a fix https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1516030/

If anyone had this issue and got their phone replaced please confirm if it was resolved...

Brazilian here. Just bought a 4S and I'm having slow wifi connection only at home (tested on a friend's house and also at work, both of them working fine.) What I noticed is that only international servers are affected. If I try to navigate on brazilian sites (i.e. "local" servers) it works flawlessly. Has anyone been through this?

Also, how do I check packet loss on my iPhone connection?

It certainly isn't my wifi connection speed. That is proven.

Iphone 5 60gb here. maybe it is hardware / capacity related. 16gb 4s is the only other model i have tested/loved.

I just did a few tests on my 5. My LTE download speed is 3Mbps and upload 0.5mbps max, and my Comcast cable modem wifi tests at 10mbps and 4mbps respectively. So my cable modem connection is way faster than my LTE connection here, even through the iPhone. However, doing almost anything on the iPhone takes a lot longer and often times out when using the much faster wifi. I am using the Ookla speed test app which shows wifi faster, yet all the following apps run slower on wifi: safari, ebay, craigslist, autoguide app.

I am using safari with my slower LTE connection to post this on my iphone with safari because it is more reliable and faster.

Everything else on our network is fine. My wife never complains with her virgin mobile iPhone 4S with iOS 6. (Not sure if she has 6.0.2). My iphone 5 w 6.0.2 on verizon wireless is the only problem in our house.

Come on Apple. Fix the problem. Get rid of the requirement sending every request back to apple before letting us use our wifi.

Class action lawsuit over collected time wasted???

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scmaruthi said:

I doubt the latter is a hardware issue...
This thread suggests to wait for a fix https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1516030/

If anyone had this issue and got their phone replaced please confirm if it was resolved...

Click to expand...

Uhh... Either you are wrong or that thread has been edited. It doesn't look like anyone is suggesting that anyone wait for a fix. It looks more to me like we should not expect/wait. It sounds to me more like an "it is what it is" thread. "Deal with it."

SomeDudeAsking said:

The iPhone 5 is known to have wifi issues (like past iPhones). Nothing you can really do about it.

Click to expand...

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Interesting that my LTE has even been taking long to make these posts (but up speed as mentioned is now for me is less than 0.5mbps.). I would not even expect my wifi to have worked.


On LTE and I was able to type all of the above before page finished loading.

Wow. I have been trying to log in now for 4 minutes, and finally got to this page. I hade to re-login after switching to wifi. Login page seemed to load pretty quickly after clicking reply. But after entering credentials and sitting at the "click here if not automatically redirected" (or something like that) page was a major problem. The "redirecting..." at the top of the safari browser seemed to sit there for more than 2 minutes, so I clicked. Nothing. Waited almost a minute. Held down to open in a new page. Had to enter credentials again. Finally after a wait things started loading.

So here I am typing on my wifi. Nothing loading while typing at all. Once things start loading it seems fast. Maybe if you aren't hitting any new redirects or servers. Well let's see how long I must wait when I click submit. Wish me luck!

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Not bad. It was about as fast as my computer. So I am on wifi. Here goes another click.


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Ha!
I just brushed my teeth while I patiently waited four minutes after clicking the reply button. Then I have up waiting and watching that circle run around, and clicked the reply button. What was that? Address bar briefly comes down and the. Goes back up but no more circle, again? Reply button a third time... Same? Hmmm. Click "edit" button. Now the edit screen quickly loaded.

So this is kind of what I experience in the apps. If I am downloading or sending a lot of data it might take me ten times to load a page, but it will usually ultimately load, while when on LTE the same page will load near instantly. It's like I am starting a freaking lawnmower. In most cases it is either going to work or it isn't. It's the blisters I get on my hand from pulling that damn cord that are pissing me off and I never know if it is going to be the second pull or the 100th pull.

Ok about to click save. I am worried, so just like when in my other apps, I am going to select all and copy before clicking so I don't have to retune all this. (Great workaround, eh?)

Was. The 4s the anomaly? I have never been an apple person but loved that damn 4s.

Ok about to click "save"


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Save and subsequent edit seem blazing fast. Let me try "reply". (Some dude has replied since. So I don't know if behavior will now change. I see that other replies to myself when I was the last post just concatenated posts after a couple dashes. I have added 3 dashes myself in my recent edits.

Clicking save

mknmike said:

So my cable modem connection is way faster than my LTE connection here, even through the iPhone. However, doing almost anything on the iPhone takes a lot longer and often times out when using the much faster wifi. I am using the Ookla speed test app which shows wifi faster, yet all the following apps run slower on wifi: safari, ebay, craigslist, autoguide app.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what happens on my 16GB 4S too. Is there anybody there with the same issue?

That last save was pretty slow. I clicked save. Realized it was slow. Copied my text while circle running around. Clicked save a few more times. Nothing. Added an edit reason. Clicked save again. Still waiting. Went to my email app and emailed the post text to myself. Came back and post was successfully saved. Too slow.

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There isn't a lot of variability here. Same site either blazing fast or incredibly slow. Of course all any wifi users remember is the painfully slow times waiting. My verizon bars go from 1 to 2 bars here. I wonder if wifi behaves better with worse cell coverage. Reading into it too much?

Here goes a submit.

There isn't a lot of variability here. Same site either blazing fast or incredibly slow. Of course all any wifi users remember is the painfully slow times waiting. My verizon bars go from 1 to 2 bars here. I wonder if wifi behaves better with worse cell coverage. Reading into it too much?

Here goes a submit.

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I hit submit, took a shower and shaved. 11 minutes later same thing. Circle still spinning so I hit submit again. Now it looks like a got a double-submit, and it was successful but info didn't get back to safari app to update the page. Second submit standing here in my towel after shower was pretty fast. Reply button wasn't bad either. Typing, about to hit submit again. I guess I will copy first.

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Less than 3 second to submit and view my edit. Reply button fast again.

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Less than 3 second to submit and view my edit. Reply button fast again.

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I waited 15 revolutions of the circle (seconds?) before hitting submit a second time. As you see it double-posted. This is the type if irritating BS that results from using wifi on your iphone 5. How long do you wait? Do you open a second browser to see if your submission was successful? Is there a time period that makes sense? Clearly 15 second would not be enough in this case. Grrrr....

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Just logged in on my wife's 6.0.0 iPhone 4a on virgin. Running fast. No problems.

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She has a 4s not 4a and the reply button seems reliable. Hmm... This is nice. I made sure she is on wifi. Yep. Now I see why she is so happy with this gift I just gave her. I chose right for her.

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Testing her sprint virgin connection . First tested on wifi. 10.5 down 4.75 up. Then sprint. 1.3 down 1.0 up. I am typing on sprint.

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Even the slow sprint seems pretty good on the 4s.

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I switched back to wifi and did not need to login. The earlier redirecting on the 4s after the login web smooth which was an item that was excruciatingly painful on the iPhone 5

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Going to give my wife her phone back. 4s iOS 6.0.0 not a problem. I will make sure she doesn't update to the already downloaded 6.0.1. She has no idea what the notifications mean.

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Back on my iphone5 and life sucks again. :-(

Can you roll back the iOS? Factory reset maybe?

I have recently read about iOS 6.0.0 and 6.0.1 having the continuous circle spinning in the safari app. So at least for safari I am going to try replacing it with mercury (or other browser)

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Ridirect was fast and successful with mercury browser. I will try this for a while.

Applejuiced said:

Damn it, I spoke too soon.
After about a day and a half of no probs my i5 wifi started acting up again.
As soon as I get home, it works fine for a few minutes, then freezes and doesnt pull any data. Then started again for a few seconds then stopped completelly.
I tried to do a speed test to see if it would receive any data/internet from the router but nothing. Stayed at 0 while all other devices in my house work and pull data with no probs.

Click to expand...

This is exactly the same problem I have, it's driving me up the wall

Behavior for me is still the same. I go to my speed test app all the time and the Internet speed is always fine, just the performance of the iphone5 iOS bringing the data down is the problem. Inconsistent, and slow.

Does anyone remember the post somewhere saying that iPhone developers coded in something to determine if wifi connection is doing a redirect to a login page?

^^ that sounds like the issue to me since I get horrible performance when I try to login and a redirect automatically happens. (Sends request to Apple and screw it all up I am guessing.)

Solution to Slow App Download

Hey, I was recently trying out various things to get the App to download correctly on the iPhone 5.
I found that using a proxy helps.
I remembered an old solution for Slow PlayStation Network Downloads.
That seems to work for me. It definitely gives an improvement.
I used an old PC with 54G connection to act as the proxy server using Privoxy.
My internet connection speed is 4Mbps and tops at around 409KB/s.
Since my net connection is slower than the 54G router, I don't think that the PC would be a bottleneck. The router is Wifi-N though.
I was not using any other computer while trying this out.
I downloaded a 20Mb App.
With the Proxy Disabled the App took exactly 6 minutes to download.
It works to 57 KB/sec
With the Proxy Enabled the App took exactly 2 minutes.
This worked out to 173 KB/sec.
Although not the ideal 409 KB/sec the 173 KB/sec felt blistering fast to watch.
Could some else verify the same with a faster internet connection and a better local network.

So, do the newer iphone 5's have a different wifi chip? How do u check to see?

My iphone 5 is a pita. Constant slow wifi trying to watch youtube video in 720 not even in 1080p. I have a 6mbps down wifi not the fastest but it just does r load att all I get 3mbps down on lte and it loads 720p youtube fast and fine. I have restored my router made sure its on b/g only as n isn't available and still slow on the youtube app actually the youtube all don't even work it just spins the circle lol I use mctube with better results but sometimes even that app doesn't load.

I just had apple replaced my iphone 5 and still seem to have the same issue. As before, when i do a speed test, 50 mb down, 10 up on wireless N. The issue is when loading a page with larger photos or a page with a lot of content on it, or youtube. If I switch wifi off, 4g loads all of these instances quickier!

I have an iphone 3gs on wifi only and it loads everything faster on G wifi than my 5 does. Makes no sense.

I just noticed a coworker today that just got an AT&T i5 having the same issues with wifi.
He asked me is your wifi here very very slow too? I cant even load a page.
I told him to restart while I was doing the same on my iphone and after that it worked fine. So looks like they havent addressed the issue with newer released iphones.

Somehow now I get constant 3 bars of wifi in my basement when yesterday it was never like that. I would always get 1-2 bars never 3 and now it stays constant at 3 bars.


For those of you who are havin wi-fi problems, try resetting Network settings and update to iOS 6.02 if you havent already. Also set the HTTP proxy to auto but dont fill in anything it helps alot for me.

Try a hard reset if the above works. I used to have wifi problems but now my wifi is fine.

If none of the above work try draining the battery in your iPhone to 0% and kep turning on the phone to the dead battery screen just to drain the battery out a little more. Doing this resets the power in the phone and so it could jumpstart the wifi.

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scmaruthi said:

Hey, I was recently trying out various things to get the App to download correctly on the iPhone 5.
I found that using a proxy helps.
I remembered an old solution for Slow PlayStation Network Downloads.
That seems to work for me. It definitely gives an improvement.
I used an old PC with 54G connection to act as the proxy server using Privoxy.
My internet connection speed is 4Mbps and tops at around 409KB/s.
Since my net connection is slower than the 54G router, I don't think that the PC would be a bottleneck. The router is Wifi-N though.
I was not using any other computer while trying this out.
I downloaded a 20Mb App.
With the Proxy Disabled the App took exactly 6 minutes to download.
It works to 57 KB/sec
With the Proxy Enabled the App took exactly 2 minutes.
This worked out to 173 KB/sec.
Although not the ideal 409 KB/sec the 173 KB/sec felt blistering fast to watch.
Could some else verify the same with a faster internet connection and a better local network.

Click to expand...

Yes im on a faster wifi network and setting the proxy to auto does help alot for me at least, brings so much more consistency

So im in my basement right now and my i5 has constantly 3 bars of wifi while my brothers Galaxy Note 2 has 1 bar wifi and the download speeds are ALOT slower down here in the basement compared to my i5. Im able to load websites much faster on my i5 in this location compared to my brothers galaxy note 2. My i5 is pulling a MUCH stronger wifi signal

I wanted to report some good semi-news.

I've had horrible wifi with my iphone 5. My iPad 2 on 5.1.1 was perfectly fine until i updated to 6.01 a couple weeks ago. I wasn't going to update, but i needed an app that required it. After i updated my iPad 2, it had the same BS wifi that my iphone 5 did.

My router is the Asus RT-N56U. It was still on its original out of the box 1.0.1.4 firmware. They have released MANY fw updates for it, and i skipped them all because i have the if it aint broke, leave it alone mentality.

I dont know what got into me, but i finally decided to upgrade to 3.0.0.4.321 fw.
I'm happy to report that not only is the range slightly better, especially in the 5Ghz spectrum, my iphone is totally usable on wifi now.

On 5Ghz only. Thats why this is semi good news. 2.4Ghz is still terrbile. I have no idea why. 5ghz is working great for a few days now.

So if anyone has this router, and an iphone or ipad with 6.0+ on it, try updating the fw of the router.

My wifi always drops when I'm on FaceTime it's so annoying makes me more pissed at AT&T for not letting me FaceTime over LTE because I have unlimited data. As of late my iPhone 5 is just crap and so is apple they can't seem to fix anything or they just don't care very very frustrating

My slow Wifi problems have been resolved since updating to 6.1

imac9556 said:

My slow Wifi problems have been resolved since updating to 6.1

Click to expand...

It's only been a day, give it some time.
It was the same for me when 6.0.2 hit it was fine for 2-3 days and then same old problem came back again.
I really hope they did fix it though.

It took my iPhone 5 45 minutes to download and install the 6.1 iOS update. It took my iPad Mini on the same WiFi system about 10 minutes. It took my old iPhone 4 backup phone about 15 minutes. Obviously files are different among devices, but 45 minutes for a .1 update was painfully slow. Not sure if 6.1 fixes it or not. Wifi either works fast or it creeps slow when it was on 6.0.2.

Applejuiced said:

It's only been a day, give it some time.
It was the same for me when 6.0.2 hit it was fine for 2-3 days and then same old problem came back again.
I really hope they did fix it though.

Click to expand...

What kind of router are you using?

aphexacid said:

What kind of router are you using?

Click to expand...

Multiple different routers throughout the day and they all do the same at times. Even open wifi's at places like starbucks, dunking donuts etc..
At home I have a Fios Actiontec, at work a new Linksys D1000.