iPhone 4 wi-fi range is pathetic?

[f4780y]

My launch day phone had very poor wi-fi reception (1 bar when about 3 feet from router, dropped as soon as left the room). Bluetooth was also very poor. This was undoubtedly a hardware issue. I took it into the apple store, they did a straight swap, and all the problems are resolved. Wifi reception on the new phone is better than my old 3G. I only drop a bar at the very furthest reaches of the house.
I strongly suggest you take it back and explain that you have a hardware fault.
They will check via diagnostics that you have completed at least 1 full restore to see if that solved the problem, so if you haven't restored yet, do that so they can see the proof. Otherwise they try and send you away to try that first.

 

[OneMike]

I get great wi-fi signal. When I leave my house and I'm beginning my drive down the road I'm still connected.

 

[Centient]

On a Dlink DIR-655 and experience no problems. Like others, I get better range than on my 3G with the same router settings. Given that your other devices seem fine it sounds like it could be a hardware issue, but I understand your reluctance to return it based on the hassle it would cause you.

Good luck.

 

[Hyata]

tl;dr

My iP4's wifi works just as well as (perhaps better than?) my former 1st gen and 3GS.

SO does mine, sounds like the OP may have a defective iPhone.

 

[Irish Rose]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A400 Safari/6531.22.7)

I don't have any WiFi issues with my iP4. It is good everywhere I go including the mall, which seems to like either ST&T's WiFi, or this other one that I haven't seen on my iP3GS.

 

[triptyx]

iPhone 3g and 4 here (both on iOS4) and neither has any problems with my Cisco N router anywhere inside (or outside) my home.

 

[Reefbone]

Maybe a router firmware update would resolve the issue.

 

[ste1164]

I get better WiFi signal and speeds on my iPhone 4 than I did with my 3GS

 

[jharju]

Most of the users are seems to be getting superb performance. I restored my phone today without any luck. I also compared my phone to co-worker iPhone 4 and wifi range difference was huge. I'm going to contact "service".

But even thought this might be minor problem there are many iPhone 4 users suffering lousy wifi. Just like there where dozens of iPad users before the update. iPod users seems to be in worst situation when it comes ti iOS4 and wifi. Hopefully Apple address at least some of the wifi problems with 4.1 update.

 

[jharju]

Little update. I have now discovered that also GPS and bluetooth are sufferings same kind of problems. This obviously is easy to understand because wifi, gps and bt are behind same antenna.

 

[itsmemuffins]

Wifi performance is superb (especially if you have a wireless N router that does 2.4GHz).

I can still pick up my homes wifi signal 3 houses down.

BTW the iP4 uses the 2.4GHz wireless N and not the 5GHz.

 

[DeLoMan]

FWIW my iPhone picks up WiFi better than any other device in my house

Agreed! Even outside I've been picking up WiFi from an extra 300 feet away from where my 3GS would quit finding it.

 

[bowlerman625]

Mine is perfect....pathetically perfect!

 

[Dyspareunia]

BTW the iP4 uses the 2.4GHz wireless N and not the 5GHz.

^ precisely that.

Have two launch day iPhone4s. Both work perfect with our Apple Airport Extreme and Netgear WNDR-3700 at home. Mine works perfect on the road with the Airport Express and seems to work great with all the various wi-fi hotspots I've encountered so far overseas.

 

[jharju]

Got my iPhone exchanged today. I took it to service on monday and I was told that queue for service was 2-3 weeks. I was also told that if I pay 20 euros (about 25 dollars) I coud get it looked quicker. I thought it about a day and decided to pay. Today I got new (refurbished) iPhone.

This one is from week 26 compared to 31 that defective was. But this one seems to be working ok. No problems with wifi, bt or gps. This also has annoying rattle from backside (camera?) and front glass seems to be brighter. Sensor above earpiece can be easily seen.

 

[djinni999]

sadly, i have similar problems. two different routers, a 3GS phone to compare with. the wifi is indeed pathetic. has nothing to do with the antenna shorting problem on the side metal banding. even without touching it, the wifi is very weak. the 3GS is excellent. 3 bars all of the time inside the house. the i4, on the other hand, occasionally can't pick up a signal, or quickly loses it when it does. at closer range it's usually 2 bars, but slight movement drops the level down 1 bar. at 2-3 meters form the router, it works great !!!
the 4.1 patch from what i know will slightly improve performance, due to a modem firmware upgrade, according to claims. i hope it at least makes my phone bearable.
i'm glad you got your problem solved. i had mine brought from the States, don't even have an invoice. what can i do?

 

[shandyman]

i'm getting a dual N router soon so my ipad and my pc will be on the 5Ghz N and my xbox and my iphone will be on the 2.4Ghz N, so touch wood, things will run nice and fast, at the mo, just on a normal 2.4Ghz N mimo router and the iPhone runs brilliant on it.

 

[jasonforisrael]

mine is poor, but not as bad as you describe.

i will commonly have 2 bars, and then it suddenly drops to just the dot on the bottom. a minute later it's back to 2.

 

[mikeee]

can people tell us what firmware they are on? my iphone came with 4.0.2 and my wifi was bad on that and then i upgraded to 4.1 and its still bad, constantly 2 to 3 bars but struggles to maintain 3 bars.

 

[iMaconApple]

iphone 4 seems to have bit more range on wifi then my 3GS..

 

[cocky jeremy]

Maybe you just got a bad iPhone.. or have bad wifi? Not sure. Mine is ridiculous now. Time Capsule + iPhone 4 = looong range. I can get almost off my road and i still have wifi now. On my other iPhones i could barely go into my yard and still get signal.