Probably for the best given their recent success with wireless and antenna designs
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 11 Lineup Supports Faster Wi-Fi 6, Which Launches Today
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Probably for the best given their recent success with wireless and antenna designs
⬇︎⬇︎⬇︎
Exactly this, on a (networked) computer with huge file transfers it makes sense, not on a phone where a video starts up 0.1 seconds faster and few people use files transfers.
It's just marketing.
Then you have a faulty iPhone.
I think the main benefit will be for the mesh systems for the backhaul. Maybe it’ll help a bit with overall bandwidth but in terms of speed you always want to hardwire as much as possible. For streaming the best WiFi will still generally lose to Ethernet due to ping and potential interference.
You’d be right if the only thing that mattered were peak data transfer rates. But it isn’t. Too simplistic. Signal strength is a big factor in experienced data transfer rate, perhaps the biggest. This is why your iPhone probably never operates at the theoretical peak of whatever Wi-Fi network you’re on, probably not even close. So the higher your max PHY rate (theoretical peak bandwidth) and the better your dBm (signal strength) the faster your data transfers will be, with a few additional assumptions. PHY rates are quantized, like bike gears, so a stronger signal allows your AP to jump to a higher “gear” and you only get the highest gear at the strongest signal. It’s not all-or-nothing. You probably won’t ever see 9.6 Gb/s either, but higher overhead and stronger, more reliable signal will translate to real world gains.
And no, it isn’t just marketing. When you say that few people are transferring large files, you’re forgetting about media streaming, which is done by millions. Just because they’re viewed media instead of saved documents doesn’t mean they’re not transferred files. In fact, viewing streaming HD or UHD video is arguably the most demanding kind of file transfer, because you’re reviewing the file as it transfers. (And before you mention that even an iPhone 11 Pro/Max doesn’t have UHD resolution, true, but: 4K(“low”)=3840x2160, 11 Pro Max=2688x1242, 11 Pro = 2436x1125, 1080p=1920x1080. And even if you’re streaming 1080p, faster transfer rates mean quicker loading, no buffering, faster switching.)
Last edited:
Fair enough.
Don't agree with this, even when it's 4k streaming the file transfer on AC is more than plenty, hell even n is enough, it's just a few MB/s, n and AC can handle this easily, I stream and never have problems with it, it starts instantly.
Wouldn't that interfere with my cable internet connection? Never heard of this before. Might be a way to isolate the line coming in from the rest of the house out at the junction box.
It can exist on the same coax. gocoax.com is the only place I know for consumers purchasing moca 2.5 adapters as of a few months ago.
Then you’re doing well, maybe don’t have other stuff on the network? Streaming 1080p reliably gave me buffer underruns on an n network, and 2160p has done it on our ac network. Unsurprisingly 4K needs more than a few MB/s. Reliably streaming h.264 compression needs maybe 50Mb/s, HEVC a little less. And our network has 15 total clients, often 3 or 4 active. FYI, I think Netflix recommends at least 25Mb/s for reasonable quality to leave a little overhead, not much; Google recommends a range of 20-51Mb/s for 4K/60 and 13-34Mb/s for 4K/30, and that’s YouTube. And again don’t forget about theoretical vs real-world peaks. I just read that typical n speeds are 40-50Mb/s, ac are 70-100. So its all pretty close. At least it’s not an order of magnitude, anyway.
So if you’re upgrading, I don’t think it’s just succumbing to marketing to make the jump to WiFi 6 MESH. Of course, many people might not need this but I doubt our family use case is all that rare.
Last edited:
I am not 100% sure if you were aware of my MB/s comment, as in Megabytes instead of bits, by a few MB/s I meant like 5-10, that is 40-80 Mb/s.
Wireless n could be a bit of a problem, I never had or almost never had, ac can handle it perfectly, but yeah, it depends on how much load there is, I am alone, still have quite a few connected devices though, I also have a semi professional network, brand..Ubiquity, stable and fast.
Hah! I’m 100% sure I missed that! Yes, Uniquiti is a good line, and I’d be surprised if they don’t come out with a managed ax system before too long. I’d prefer it but if it’s not available by the time we install I’ll probably go with Netgear’s Orbi. Could do worse.
We’ve been deploying Cisco 9120 APs with AX and I was disappointed today when I got to work with my new phone. Cisco clearly has firmware issues with the new APs because my connection was horrible.
AirPower failed completely. The iPhone 11 antennae are very poor, as were the XS ones before that.
Apple need to get some new engineers in. AirPort was great for its time and I wouldn't trust Apple's current engineers not to ruin the name.
Do you have data on this? I know they’re different from the Xs, but what evidence do you have that they’re very poor?
In the main Antenna thread the graphs of the gains were posted and indicated the 11's would be like the XS. People are also now posting their experiences which are consistent with the poor XS performance.
As @Khedron mentioned. The FCC submissions clearly shows subpar antenna performance. Not sure what is happening in Appleville these days...
People are also reporting performance better than Xs. You’re cherry picking.
[automerge]1569325361[/automerge]
Air power is irrelevant.
What reports I've seen is faster performance when the signal is great, but just as bad when signal isn't great.
The problem of low signal isn't fixed. The phone is faster when it does work though.
To me there is no “problem of low signal”, at least on my Xs max. It may take Apple a release or two to tweak the firmware, just like they did with iOS 12.
I read through the MR “antenna” threads you referenced and I see what’s happening. You’re confusing the iPhone antenna for the iPhone modem chipset. The antenna, for which Apple is responsible, is just fine, and even improved on the 11/Pro/Max. The modem, for which Intel is currently responsible, is what may be causing inferior performance on recent iPhone models. I am having excellent performance with an Intel modem in my iPhone 8. Who knows if there’s something about the design/antenna combination of the iPhone 8 that cooperates better with the Intel modem, or maybe the Intel modem I have is better than the subsequent generations in the iPhone X/11. But that’s not an Apple issue. If Intel is now making inferior modems, do you think it’s Apple’s responsibility to pick up their slack with a miracle antenna? Don’t blame Apple for someone else’s modem performance, and for the love of all that’s holy please let’s not restart the discussion of whether Apple should have settled with QC before the 2019 product cycle. They didn’t, we now have iPhone 11’s with excellent antennas, arguably suboptimal modems, plenty of people with good reception nonetheless, and a bunch of customers who want to wait until next year when they’ll finally get their QC modem back. And after that we’ll get an in-house Apple-designed modem, and we’ll see what happens then.
Last edited:
In reality none of us know what is causing the problem of the iPhone 11 family to work less efficiently with a low signal than phones of similar caliber.
If your Intel modem works better than later versions of the part, then this is surely Apple’s problem. People aren’t buying Intel iPhones, are they (miracle antenna aside)?
How do you know the iPhone 11 family is using better antennas? I have seen no confirmation of this anywhere except for the “Ming” rumor mill. I hope that Apple is using better antennas, and if you have a reliable source to back this up, please provide the source. I would love for this to be true. Seriously. I also think we should agree that just because the antenna might be better quality, it does not mean that it was implemented properly...
One idea being thrown around is that the stainless steel band, on the pro model, is responsible for the lower antenna gain on said model. I’m not an RF engineer, so I can’t comment definitively.
Th bottom line is this: From what I have read, the iPhone antenna gain is subpar to other phone manufacturer's solutions. I am basing this on Apple’s reports submitted to the FCC. What are you basing your claim that it’s the Intel modem, and not the antenna design, that is at fault?
I had to quote this again because at the end of the day, the iPhone is Apple’s product. If you look closely, you’ll even see their logo on it. They are responsible for everything they decide to put inside of it. If they got themselves into a position where they had to use “inferior” parts, then they must own that. Seriously, think about what you wrote.
Last edited:
Okay. First, his whole discussion came from an op who didn’t distinguish between an antenna and a modem, so I drew the distinction that remains. I like the antenna, the modem chipset is a major sourced component on whose design iPhone cellular speeds rely. That’s still true.
Second, no, I don’t know of confirmation of the improved antenna design, but given his accuracies with other aspects of iPhone 11, I’m perfectly content to put stock in Kuo’s plants in the Apple’s supply chain. And the info has been very specific about distribution of MPI vs LCP antennas (4 of one, two of the other) and performance expectations, as well as 2x2 vs 4x4 MIMO in the 11 vs 11Pro/Max. I have a suspicion that these aren’t wild guesses.
Third, we also know that iPhone 11 probably has Intel’s XMM7660 modem instead of the XMM7560 in the Xs. Oh can wiki the differences (I had to) but I read that it all adds up to an expected performance improvement of about 20% vs prior gen.
Fourth, no, I have no idea how most people will experience reception and bandwidth. All I know is that iFixIt did not find iPhone 11 guts encased in lead when they opened it, and that the front and back are both glass. It’ll probably be fine.
tl;dr
Fifth and to your point, I’m well aware that it’s an Apple-branded device. I was aware before you quoted me twice, but thanks for that. I’m aware of the fruity logo on the back. Without getting into the mire of Apple’s decision not to settle with Qualcomm, I assume you’re aware that Apple was therefore left with a choice: Intel modem or no modem. Intel modems generally work fine. Snapdragons may well be better. Apple may well have preferred them, but did not choose to cave to what they felt were predatory business practices (don’t pounce, people; just summarizing Apple’s position). Are we paying the price for their alleged principles? Who knows? Who knows if Apple would’ve taken a QC Snapdragon modem and dunked it in lead before putting it in an iPhone. I also don’t know of another smartphone with an XMM 7560 (or 7660 for that matter) against which to run a meaningful comparison. But at the end of the day, you don’t blame your sports car for not performing well on 87 octane, particularly if it were the only gas available. Apple felt the Intels were fine, and I tend to agree. You may not. Most users do, so they clearly made a reasonable call. Apple obviously takes responsibility for the guts in their gizmos, but the tech-informed know the deeper story.
Do we agree that for people in low signal situations, that are experiencing dropped calls, slow speeds (whatever the case may be) that we don’t have a definitive answer as to what the problem may be?
Indeed we do. There are a host of potential answers. We don’t yet have enough data on the 11/Pro/Max. I have a hunch it was mostly the modem in the X/Xs, but I don’t know of another smartphone with the same modem to compare. The same modem can perform differently in a different gizmo. My point to the op (who doubted Apple Airports because of Apple’s problems with “antennas”) is that we shouldn’t automatically blame Apple’s antennas. We can probably agree on that as well.
Last edited: