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Some iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Users Experiencing Intermittent Wi-Fi Issue

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Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues.

iPhone-17-Pro-and-Air-N1-Feature.jpg

Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the past four days. It is unclear how widespread the problem is.

Specifically, affected users said Wi-Fi briefly disconnects and then reconnects after they unlock the iPhone. And since Apple's CarPlay system in vehicles relies on a Wi-Fi connection, the issue can result in CarPlay disconnecting too.

Many users said the issue occurs while they are wearing an Apple Watch that is paired and unlocked, but it is unclear if that is always a contributing factor.

MacRumors has been unable to reproduce the problem, but it has reached out to Apple for comment on the matter. This story will be updated if Apple responds.

It is unclear if this is a hardware or software problem, but Apple is often able to fix these sorts of issues with a software update. iOS 26.0.1 is coming soon, but it is unclear if Apple will have identified and implemented a fix in time for that version.

All four of the new iPhone models are equipped with Apple's first-ever custom-designed N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread connectivity, whereas previous iPhone models rely on a Broadcom chip for wireless networking.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Apple touted the N1 chip's power efficiency.

"One of the things people may not realize is that your Wi-Fi access points actually contribute to your device's awareness of location, so you don't need to use GPS, which actually costs more from a power perspective," said Arun Mathias, Apple's vice president of wireless software technologies. "By being able to do this more seamlessly in the background, not needing to wake up the application processor as much, we can do that significantly more efficiently."

In its press releases for the new iPhones, Apple said the N1 chip also improves the performance and reliability of features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.

Unfortunately, though, it appears the N1 chip is not so reliable for Wi-Fi for some users right now.

Article Link: Some iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Users Experiencing Intermittent Wi-Fi Issue
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/22/iphone-17-pro-air-wifi-cutting-out-issue/
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No Wi-Fi issues, just my Bluetooth will disconnect from one of my headsets constantly which will then make the little AI voice in the headset say BT disconnected BT connected. Of course I am sure this is related to a firmware issues on the headset side of things and its not something that I regularly use with or for my phone anyway.
 
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I had a disconnect from Carplay once. With my Wifi 7 at home I have abslutely no issues.
I read from a few that it is much worse for them. Let`s see how long apple will take to fix that with an update.
 
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WiFi is such a matured tech contributing to many areas of seamless access & connectivity(plus security), not easy to be perfect in the first iteration.
 
I had many problems connecting the new phone ( iphone 17 ) to my car to use car play. didnt work at all at first, after many attempts it connected.

main issue is my ultra 2 won't stay connected to the phone. initial setup while transferring from 15 to 17 didnt work, in the end i set up the watch as completly new. that worked half a day, and now it still shows as "not connected" under bluetooth on the phone. but in find me etc it says the watch is hooked up to the phone. very annoying...
 
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Happens on my 17PM, not related to AW nor CarPlay, just seems totally random.
AW unlocking with phone does take quite a bit longer compared to my 13PM and always requires to lock/unlock phone multiple times.
When WiFi drops out it seems to switch immediately to cellular, I have mmWave reception at home so I don't really notice the drop, just seeing it in the status bar.
Still annoying
 
This wireless CarPlay drop happens on my iPhone 12 Pro Max too, but only in iOS 26. Interestingly, it didn't happen with the earlier betas, and only started happening with the release version of iOS 26.
 
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MacRumors said:


Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues.

iPhone-17-Pro-and-Air-N1-Feature.jpg

Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the past four days. It is unclear how widespread the problem is.

Specifically, affected users said Wi-Fi briefly disconnects and then reconnects after they unlock the iPhone. And since Apple's CarPlay system in vehicles relies on a Wi-Fi connection, the issue can result in CarPlay disconnecting too.

Many users said the issue occurs while they are wearing an Apple Watch that is paired and unlocked, but it is unclear if that is always a contributing factor.

MacRumors has been unable to reproduce the problem, but it has reached out to Apple for comment on the matter. This story will be updated if Apple responds.

It is unclear if this is a hardware or software problem, but Apple is often able to fix these sorts of issues with a software update. iOS 26.0.1 is coming soon, but it is unclear if Apple will have identified and implemented a fix in time for that version.

All four of the new iPhone models are equipped with Apple's first-ever custom-designed N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread connectivity, whereas previous iPhone models rely on a Broadcom chip for wireless networking.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Apple touted the N1 chip's power efficiency.

"One of the things people may not realize is that your Wi-Fi access points actually contribute to your device's awareness of location, so you don't need to use GPS, which actually costs more from a power perspective," said Arun Mathias, Apple's vice president of wireless software technologies. "By being able to do this more seamlessly in the background, not needing to wake up the application processor as much, we can do that significantly more efficiently."

In its press releases for the new iPhones, Apple said the N1 chip also improves the performance and reliability of features like Personal Hotspot and AirDrop.

Unfortunately, though, it appears the N1 chip is not so reliable for Wi-Fi for some users right now.

Article Link: Some iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Users Experiencing Intermittent Wi-Fi Issue
Click to expand...
For months now my 16pm has issues with carplay after phone calls.
It can be resolved by disconnecting the car and reconnecting.
So zero to do with N1.
 
EugW said:
This wireless CarPlay drop happens on my iPhone 12 Pro Max too, but only in iOS 26. Interestingly, it didn't happen with the earlier betas, and only started happening with the release version of iOS 26.
Click to expand...
See my other post. For months there have been consistent issues after a phone call
 
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That definitely explains my wireless CarPlay issue on my 17 Pro Max. It’s completely unusable as it disconnects and reconnects every ten seconds. I may be lucky to get three minutes, then it’ll rapidly disconnect and reconnect again. Absolutely crap. I tried it on wired and it’s flawless that way.

And this is on a native wireless CarPlay Pioneer head unit, and using an aftermarket adapter that converts wired CarPlay to wireless, Carplay2Air. Both devices do the same thing.
 
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MNGR said:
See my other post. For months there have been consistent issues after a phone call
Click to expand...
I very occasionally had this problem too, but if there were no phone calls it would be fine. My wireless CarPlay with 12 Pro Max wouldn't disconnect... until I installed the iOS 26 release version.
 
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