Apple's New N1 Chip in iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Has a Wi-Fi 7 Limitation

[RyeWit]

Not sure why so many people are defending Apple with the 160mhz decision.

Wifi 7 has already demonstrated the ability to drive 5-8Gbps MLO speeds from 20ft through a single wall using off the shelf equipment (Orbi 970 as an example). https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/wi-fi-7-tested-benchmarks.

Many of us Tech Enthusiasts pay extra for a device (in this case, a PRO iPhone) for more niche capability and features.

It seems silly for anyone to defend, if not praise Apple for not enabling a 320mhz Wifi-7 option on their N1, premium wireless chip.

Personally will never shoot in RAW on my iPhone, nor will I ever shoot an 8K Film in ProRes. These are features which don't pertain to me, however I applaud Apple for leading the industry in Camera + Video capabilities.

Wish they would seek to do the same in the networking realm.

Will see what the benchmarks say, but there would be something bad-ass about maxing out a google fiber 8GB pipe while my Wife and I speed test together on Wifi 7, 320mhz in our iPhone 17 Pros.

 

[lotones]

Not sure why so many people are defending Apple with the 160mhz decision.

Wifi 7 has already demonstrated the ability to drive 5-8Gbps MLO speeds from 20ft through a single wall using off the shelf equipment (Orbi 970 as an example). https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/wi-fi-7-tested-benchmarks.

Many of us Tech Enthusiasts pay extra for a device (in this case, a PRO iPhone) for more niche capability and features.

It seems silly for anyone to defend, if not praise Apple for not enabling a 320mhz Wifi-7 option on their N1, premium wireless chip.

Personally will never shoot in RAW on my iPhone, nor will I ever shoot an 8K Film in ProRes. These are features which don't pertain to me, however I applaud Apple for leading the industry in Camera + Video capabilities.

Wish they would seek to do the same in the networking realm.

Will see what the benchmarks say, but there would be something bad-ass about maxing out a google fiber 8GB pipe while my Wife and I speed test together on Wifi 7, 320mhz in our iPhone 17 Pros.

Because even though the phone says "pro", Apple has to balance features and performance for "everybody", not just "pros", or even just "pros" in ideal situations.

 

[chucker23n1]

Not sure why so many people are defending Apple with the 160mhz decision.

Wifi 7 has already demonstrated the ability to drive 5-8Gbps MLO speeds from 20ft through a single wall using off the shelf equipment (Orbi 970 as an example). https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/wi-fi-7-tested-benchmarks.

Many of us Tech Enthusiasts pay extra for a device (in this case, a PRO iPhone) for more niche capability and features.

It seems silly for anyone to defend, if not praise Apple for not enabling a 320mhz Wifi-7 option on their N1, premium wireless chip.

Personally will never shoot in RAW on my iPhone, nor will I ever shoot an 8K Film in ProRes. These are features which don't pertain to me, however I applaud Apple for leading the industry in Camera + Video capabilities.

Wish they would seek to do the same in the networking realm.

Will see what the benchmarks say, but there would be something bad-ass about maxing out a google fiber 8GB pipe while my Wife and I speed test together on Wifi 7, 320mhz in our iPhone 17 Pros.

Nobody is saying the iPhone wouldn't be even better if it had 320 MHz.

My questions remain: how many competing products offer 320 MHz? How common is it for that to be a measurable benefit?

 

[SactoGuy18]

But here's the question: will you actually see a difference? Unless you have a home fiber or (increasingly) DOCSIS 4.0 cable modem running at above 2 gigabits per second download speed at the modem level, the N1 limitation of 160 MHz bandwidth will unlikely be an issue.

 

[PCMacUser]

Nobody is saying the iPhone wouldn't be even better if it had 320 MHz.

My questions remain: how many competing products offer 320 MHz? How common is it for that to be a measurable benefit?

Samsung has offered 320 MHz since the S24 Ultra (early 2024) and subsequently the S25 range.

My own performance tests of the S24 Ultra on 320 MHz vs the iPhone 16 Pro on 160 MHz yielded similar speed results. The test was iPerf3, run from each device approximately 50cm away from a Ubiquiti WiFi 7 access point.

Both devices achieved a maximum download speed from my Linux server of 1.4gbps. Either I have a configuration issue with my AP (or phone), or there's no perceivable difference in the performance of these phones on WiFi 7. My Windows PC with WiFi 7 gets noticeably better performance than these phones and there is a massive difference in speed between 160 MHz and 320 MHz on the computer.

When would this matter? Well if you run a home network with local servers, like I do, and you are backing up or transferring hundreds of gigabytes from your phone, then it matters. If you function solely using Internet-based services like iCloud or OneDrive, you will always be limited by Internet speed so it's less relevant.

 

[chucker23n1]

Samsung has offered 320 MHz since the S24 Ultra (early 2024) and subsequently the S25 range.

My own performance tests of the S24 Ultra on 320 MHz vs the iPhone 16 Pro on 160 MHz yielded similar speed results. The test was iPerf3, run from each device approximately 50cm away from a Ubiquiti WiFi 7 access point.

Both devices achieved a maximum download speed from my Linux server of 1.4gbps. Either I have a configuration issue with my AP (or phone), or there's no perceivable difference in the performance of these phones on WiFi 7. My Windows PC with WiFi 7 gets noticeably better performance than these phones and there is a massive difference in speed between 160 MHz and 320 MHz on the computer.

But you're saying 320 MHz doesn't measurably help on the S24 Ultra anyway.

(I would venture to guess your Windows PC has an antenna large enough for it to make a difference, and also an antenna that wouldn't really fit in a phone.)

When would this matter? Well if you run a home network with local servers, like I do, and you are backing up or transferring hundreds of gigabytes from your phone, then it matters. If you function solely using Internet-based services like iCloud or OneDrive, you will always be limited by Internet speed so it's less relevant.

Do you find yourself transferring hundreds of gigabytes from a phone(!) a lot? And if so, isn't that a use case where you might as well connect USB-C anyway?

 

[PCMacUser]

But you're saying 320 MHz doesn't measurably help on the S24 Ultra anyway.

Yes, you read that correctly -- there wasn't much speed difference between these two phones in my testing. I did another test this morning and found the S24U was able to hit 1.87gbps but only for a couple of seconds before dropping down again. So I think the issue is potentially an implementation problem on the S24. I don't have an S25 to test with.

My Unifi controller sees the S24 Ultra connected to my access point with a transmit rate of 4.32 Gbps (320 MHz), and the iPhone 16 Pro with a transmit rate of 1.92Gbps (160 MHz). My desktop PC is also at 4.32 Gbps (320 MHz).

Do you find yourself transferring hundreds of gigabytes from a phone(!) a lot? And if so, isn't that a use case where you might as well connect USB-C anyway?

Yes, I fairly regularly do multi-gig transfers to my servers (I prefer to use locally-hosted services, such as Immich, instead of cloud-based). With Immich, for example, the transfer is done via an app, so WiFi is the only option.

In another real-world use case -- transferring my lossless music library on iTunes -- I am able to use a cable, although the iPhone automatically connects to iTunes over WiFi, so if that WiFi could go faster then it would save me having to plug in.

Hopefully all my rambling is of some use to you.

 

[chucker23n1]

Yes, you read that correctly -- there wasn't much speed difference between these two phones in my testing. I did another test this morning and found the S24U was able to hit 1.87gbps but only for a couple of seconds before dropping down again. So I think the issue is potentially an implementation problem on the S24. I don't have an S25 to test with.

My contention is that phones just fundamentally don't have the right specs (yet) to make good use of it.

My Unifi controller sees the S24 Ultra connected to my access point with a transmit rate of 4.32 Gbps (320 MHz), and the iPhone 16 Pro with a transmit rate of 1.92Gbps (160 MHz). My desktop PC is also at 4.32 Gbps (320 MHz).

Yes, I fairly regularly do multi-gig transfers to my servers (I prefer to use locally-hosted services, such as Immich, instead of cloud-based).

(Those are theoretical bandwidths; I wouldn't be surprised if an actual transfer offered a fraction of that as sustained throughput.)

Sure. But from a phone? That seems like quite an edge case to me.

(I do, in principle, advocate for self-hosting, but even then, "I have to upload multiple gigs of data from a phone" probably mostly happens right after a trip, when you've shot many videos?)

With Immich, for example, the transfer is done via an app, so WiFi is the only option.

Which seems like something the app should work on.

In another real-world use case -- transferring my lossless music library on iTunes -- I am able to use a cable, although the iPhone automatically connects to iTunes over WiFi, so if that WiFi could go faster then it would save me having to plug in.

Hopefully all my rambling is of some use to you.

It is!

And like I said, if the iPhone does eventually support 320 MHz, that's without doubt better. I just caution against comparing products based purely on theoretical specs; actual practicality matters, too.

For example, Nokia had phones with 3G/UMTS half a decade before the iPhone 3G came out, but only the in era of iOS and Android did 3G truly start making sense for the masses, as web browsing, video chat, etc. on a phone started to actually have sufficiently good UX. The specs in terms of bandwidth were there, but the holistic experience wasn't yet.

 

[PCMacUser]

I'm popping out now to pick up an iPhone 17 Pro so I'll run some tests on the new device. If there's anything interesting to report in terms of WiFi 7 performance, I'll post an update.

 

[funkyp56]

I have yet to have this 17 Pro Max even connect to 6GHz let alone Wi-Fi 7. Maybe a bug out there?