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One small detail ---

jav6454

jav6454

macrumors Core
Original poster
Nov 14, 2007
22,303
6,270
1 Geostationary Tower Plaza
Yeah, I like the new iPhone, however, I have one small problem with it. No, its not the price or the plan. I can deal with those. No, its not the late MMS or tethering, the jailbreak community has my back on that one.

Its a simple chip that should have been upgraded to meet today's Apple standards. Notice, Apple's not ours.

The chip I'm talking about is the Wi-Fi chip. It is still at the lame 802.11 b/g mode. Apple currently is trying to make 802.11n the standard across its product line. It comes standard in laptops, desktops and Airports Stations.

At many places 802.11n is the only type of signal being broadcasted and hence, anything with a, b or g is left out. The iPhone is supposed to be the technological pinnacle of phones (that is how Apple has advertised it "Light years ahead"). However, it falls behind in Wi-Fi.

People will ay, well, why not buy the new Airport stations that have dual bands. That's not the point. True I can use that at home, but, that's about it. Any other place I'll be stuck with whatever protocol they support (which increasingly is becoming 802.11n).

I like the new iPhone and will be buying it, but I feel that was the only shortcoming of it. (I could care less for videoconferencing)
 
This is a similar argument to why the original iPhone did not have 3G. I'm sure there are reasons for it and Apple will probably implement it when they deem necessary or the it is cost effective or hundreds of other reasons.
 
I wondered about by the iPhone is only b/g but it could be power consumption or it could be another reason. I'm not all that worked up about it. The majority of wifi networks I join are b or g anyways. The only place where I'll enjoy faster speeds is at my home, and then the n wouldn't matter because my internet speed is the bottleneck.

That might also be the reason why they don't have 802.11n on the iPhone as well.
 
I agree, it's the only thing that bothers me about the 3gs, other than that it's perfect for me, I already have a 3g..
But since wifi should be anyway faster, I suppose, thanks to other hardware, guess it will do for now..
 
I have yet to come across a modern Wi-Fi router or AP where it has been setup to only support one band. As far as I am aware every 802.11n router also supports at least b/g and many even support a. Anyone who owns and operates a Wi-Fi router or AP and disables the older bands is just being stupid.

Sure, it would be nice to have 802.11n on the iPhone but it isn't necessary and to imply that the majority of Wi-Fi out there is using n is just silly and an exaggeration and to further imply that they have disabled b/g is really blowing things out of proportion to what is reality.
 
No wireless N networks by me

I have yet to encounter an 802.11n network except for at the local apple store, which with dual band routers also supplies a "g" network as well. I see your point, I just don't see the need for it yet.:cool:
 
my g router still works fine and I get good speeds on it. Why should I care about paying an arm an a leg for n?

I'll wait until the technology is more widespread to worry about that. It's just like clamoring for not having 3G on your phone in 2005.
 
I'm not looking for excuses, but personally I don't see Safari or any other app on the iPhone being able to handle speeds of that magnitude. Page loading is delayed on the phone because of CPU speed, more than wifi speed. I may be wrong on this one, but that's the impression I have on it.
 
Pattycerts said:
I'm not looking for excuses, but personally I don't see Safari or any other app on the iPhone being able to handle speeds of that magnitude. Page loading is delayed on the phone because of CPU speed, more than wifi speed. I may be wrong on this one, but that's the impression I have on it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The phone could not take advantage of the speed. In fact, quad core computers can't even take advantage of the speed of wifi n when using the internet, since even high end broadband connections are usually limited to 6-10 mbps, which is well below the true throughput of a G router.

N routers have two advantages - speed for LOCAL data transfer (ie. streaming video from one computer to another - something you can't do on an iPhone) and signal range. The signal range part would be a benefit of having N capability in the iPhone, but I assume the disadvantages outweigh that benefit. Going with N in the iPhone now would increase component cost and probably introduce battery life issues (I'd bet the chips are immature).

I really don't see this as a big deal. 7.2 mbps 3G is a much bigger deal, and they added that.
 
Two words: Battery Life

Isn't this why 3G got left out in the original? Either way, I am good not have -N mostly because my school doesn't use it.
 
hcoteen2008 said:
Two words: Battery Life

Isn't this why 3G got left out in the original? Either way, I am good not have -N mostly because my school doesn't use it.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you're right about this one. My iPhone has good battery on 802.11 G.On 3G it down right sucks. I was guessing that with an N chip it would be draining too much to bring the battery spec down. Just like 3G does on the current ones. Then Apple wouldn't be able to say it has a better battery life.
 
Adding "n" could have facilitated wi-fi syncing with your computer or other devices. I would really like to just come home, attach to my "n" network and have the phone automatically sync without the use of cables. Also, I think if you have multiple speeds enabled on your router, the router drops down to the lowest speed of the device connected.

So if my laptop is syncing with my AppleTV over "n" and my iPhone connects to my router, the entire network would drop down to "g". Although Apple did release new base stations that allow both a "n" and "g" network to run at the same time.
 
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