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Apple Looking Into LTE Connectivity Issues Affecting Some iPhone XS and XS Max Owners

falainber said:
What they claim is that the new modem is faster at the same signal strength. They did not test if XS antenna is as good as X antenna at providing the same signal strength. Modem will be irrelevant if there is no signal.
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There's an entire "Real world" section where they pulled stats from Ookla across multiple US and Canadian carriers.
 
Steve686 said:
I’m inside a very large shopping mall, inside a Cheesecake Factory at the bar. As per photo I am on AT&T.

Absolutely no issues today or since I got the Xs Max on launch day.

WiFi is also excellent.

Purely posting data and not diminishing anyone else’s issues.
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Have you been in an area in your town that normally is poor that you could test. You have full bars. It is when you don’t that the performance is real bad
 
I am not seeing a big difference on LTE between my X and XS on AT&T, however I have been in touch with an apple engineer and have an active case dealing with my WiFi connectivity. The x favors the 2.4ghz band while every other apple device in my house will lock onto the 5Ghz. If I toggle the wifi or airplane mode the x will jump on the 5ghz but only for a short period and then gravitate to the 2.4ghz.
 
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Shadar said:
I am so very happy for all you pioneers out there, taking arrows as you blow through the bugs, making noise and otherwise helping Engineering fix them. It's a hell of a good service.

By January it'll be safe for me to think about a new iPhone.
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Man, I hope it’s not that long..,..
 
Wags said:
Have you been in an area in your town that normally is poor that you could test. You have full bars. It is when you don’t that the performance is real bad
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Exactly. I have two areas where I live with very poor VZW signal on my iPhone 8+ but I still have usable signal. With my xs max, I also had one bar showing but could not make a call nor do anything on line as I can with my 8. It was basically dead. Also 2.4 gig WiFi had slow speeds when compared to my 8 and that is IF it was actually connected even with full signal showing. All too often, Speedtest gave the error of no network connection yet having full signal.
I have done network resets twice, a full DFU restore and setup as new and yet the weak signal LTE connectivity and WiFi connectivity problem continued. I sent mine back as I don’t feel like beta testing a new device for Apple at this price.
 
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archer75 said:
A good read: https://www.pcmag.com/news/364116/iphone-xs-crushes-x-in-lte-speeds-but-still-falls-short-of

"The iPhone XS is a huge step up from the iPhone X when it comes to LTE download speeds, according to exclusive new data from Cellular Insights and Ookla Speedtest. But it still doesn't quite match the Qualcomm X20 modem used in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9."

"Between the three 4x4 MIMO phones, you can see that in good signal conditions, the Qualcomm-powered Galaxy Note 9 and Google Pixel 2 still do a bit better than the iPhone XS Max. But as signal gets weaker, the XS Max really competes, showing that it's well tuned."

"The iPhone XS shows, on average, 6.6Mbps faster download speeds on all US carriers than the iPhone X, according to Speedtest Intelligence. In Canada, that difference jumps to a massive 20.2Mbps."


"We saw a noticeable jump in performance from iOS 11 to iOS 12 on our Intel iPhone X unit, bringing it closer to the initial performance of the Qualcomm iPhone X. Early versions of new phone firmware are sometimes buggy. When the Samsung Galaxy S8 came out, the first version of Sprint's firmware had a bad timer in it that caused the phone to drop from the faster Band 41 to the slower Band 25 too frequently; that was later fixed in a software update, making the phone's performance appear to improve.

The first versions of the iPhone XS firmware may, in some places, be causing trouble with signal reception. We were unable to find any issues in the hardware that would explain negative experiences, but we also don't want to deny the experiences a few people are having. To them, we say: Don't return your phone, because we bet a fix is coming."
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Unfortunately smartphone reviews don't show the firmware number.
 
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lsbuffs said:
While there are times I can get up to 20Mbps download on Verizon LTE on my Xs Max, most of my Speedtests show 1Mbps or less. I'm in a decent Verizon coverage area and haven't seen similar issues with any previous iPhones (most recently had the X)

As an aside, why is it that every time I call Apple Support to report an issue, the advisor makes it seem like I'm the first one who's ever reported it to Apple? I'm on the phone with them now and the advisor wants me to reset network settings, Airplane Mode, Wifi, LTE, etc., etc. Fine, but already done all that. Then he goes and talks to a senior advisor and comes back with something about this is a known carrier issue "in the south" and it's been going on "since September". I politely explained that 1) I'm not in "the south" (I'm in Phoenix) and 2) that this issue is being widely reported related specifically to the Xs and Xs Max. I even mentioned it's the top story now on Macrumors. They then explained to me that it's a third-party sight (duh) and they couldn't access it.
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Experienced exact same behavior on Verizon in South Texas.
 
I have to say that my launch day device had this issue. There I have had lost connectivity. I’d be driving down the street and when I get off the car and use my phone to attempt to text. I noticed that I only had the signal bar and no LTE on it and wouldn’t let me send a text or receive a text. I put my phone on airplane mode on and off and that fixed the issue and got the word LTE back on it. Luckily I had one being delivered last Friday so I ended up returning this one as clearly it’s defective.
 
Baymowe335 said:
When they say "hardware issue," they are simply talking about YOUR phone, guaranteed. They haven't told you the iPhone XS has a hardware design flaw, so you're overstating how dramatic the problem is for the product at large.
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I believe the problem has more to do with how far away from the cell tower you are. Which is why you can see so many, my phone is ok posts.

We already know that the XS antenna design is not as efficient as the X.
 
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wgaller said:
I have had this problem on my X on ATT, Apple replaced the phone in August - still continues so working with Apple today. Did a clean install of OS12. We’ll see if this fixes. Here’s what I saw on SpeetTest this morning.


View attachment 791838
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Forgot to mention that the speed rating is from WiFi, although iPhone shows it as LTE.
 
Shadowbech said:
I have to say that my launch day device had this issue. There I have had lost connectivity. I’d be driving down the street and when I get off the car and use my phone to attempt to text. I noticed that I only had the signal bar and no LTE on it and wouldn’t let me send a text or receive a text. I put my phone on airplane mode on and off and that fixed the issue and got the word LTE back on it. Luckily I had one being delivered last Friday so I ended up returning this one as clearly it’s defective.
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Is the new one free of defects and what models please?
 
rebretz000 said:
I'll rewrite it for you.
The PCMag article didn't study the antennae ability to connect to or hold a signal from a tower. Only the phones download speed under optimal conditions at specific signal levels.

Better?
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No. The the antenna doesn’t latch on to a signal. It receives one. And the measure of what it receives is how much information it can receive per unit time.

You are probably thinking of the radio tuner.
 
What if it's a hardware problem and Apple started a fight with the only modem builder that can give acceptable numbers. For Pete's sake, my new Verizon Xs has lower LTE speeds than my iPhone 6 did, especially inside a building. Give me back my Qualcomm modem, PLEASE
 
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rebretz000 said:
I'll rewrite it for you.
The PCMag article didn't study the antennae ability to connect to or hold a signal from a tower. Only the phones download speed under optimal conditions at specific signal levels.

Better?
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Not really. Antennas do not "connect" to another antenna tower. You should research antenna gain, directivity, and electrical efficiency. The FCC release and blog post are quite relevant even though this belief is coming from my own minute understanding of RF.
 
class77 said:
What if it's a hardware problem and Apple started a fight with the only modem builder that can give acceptable numbers. For Pete's sake, my new Xs has lower LTE speeds than my iPhone 6 did, especially inside a building. Give me back my Qualcomm modem, PLEASE
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It looks like a software issue based on my experiments. Possibly the baseband firmware. It seems to have problems negotiating to the best frequency/strongest signal. Toggling airplane mode or LTE settings repeatedly seems to make it randomly work well or work poorly.
 
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