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cshaver101

macrumors member
Sep 21, 2017
52
27
It is best to report problems to Apple, in my opinion. Sprint does nothing but teach their employees how to apologize for everything and make promises that aren't kept. Whatever it takes to get the customer off the phone.

Your problem won't be fixed by Monday. It will be later than that when the next iOS update is released.
Luckily I escalated my complaints high enough that they just ordered my husband and I new phones.
 
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Kimmie92592

macrumors member
Feb 13, 2013
57
21
California
Okay, so I wasn't having any coverage with my ATT xs Max and I was having problems overall with ATT so I took my ATT phones back and signed up for T-Mobile. Now I'm having the same problems. Even though the LTE shows on the phone like there's coverage, it's not working. I'm new to T-Mobile so I don't know if it's just T-Mobile sucking or if it's this phone. But one weird thing is, I can't use Ookla Speedtest on my phone while it's on LTE. I can only use it on Wifi. When I use it on LTE it says "Test Failed to Complete. Check your internet connection and try again. I contacted Ookla via Facebook chat and they said I have to talk to T-Mobile about this, that it's their network that is the problem. The weird thing is, this same thing was happening on the ATT phone. I went to T-Mobile today and they said they don't know anything about this Ookla Speedtest thing (which I find very hard to believe). I uninstalled the Speedtest and reinstalled it and restarted my phone and still this happens. I'm not very tech savvy so I don't know what to do now. We have another xs max on our account and his is working fine but he's in a high coverage area and probably not noticing any problem at all anyway. Another problem, I can't use this phone as a modem. My iPhone 5s is using the Speedtest fine and I can use it as a modem. Not the XS Max.
 
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elitypes

macrumors regular
Oct 5, 2007
114
201
And yours is also good?
My serial starts with FF and I have the LTE/WiFi issues, iPhone XS Max on AT&T in NYC. There really doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason that I can determine. Also people keep mentioning how if you are in strong signal area you likely wouldn't experience issues, but I am in NYC where I previously had strong coverage, but now have terrible coverage.

The Apple support engineer I sent logs and sys diagnose files to said they would get back to me after review. I'm getting increasingly frustrated about the whole experience. I stupidly had sold my iPhone 7+ during my XS Max purchase. Now I am in a "wait and see" position but it doesn't look like we are anywhere near a point to hear from Apple or a possible solution.

As mentioned previously, the Apple tech told me they may end up suggesting I get a phone replacement, but I have zero confidence that will fix anything. Many have already posted about getting replacement units to no benefit.
 
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PBz

macrumors 68030
Nov 3, 2005
2,616
1,577
SoCal
Okay, so I wasn't having any coverage with my ATT xs Max and I was having problems overall with ATT so I took my ATT phones back and signed up for T-Mobile. Now I'm having the same problems. Even though the LTE shows on the phone like there's coverage, it's not working. I'm new to T-Mobile so I don't know if it's just T-Mobile sucking or if it's this phone. But one weird thing is, I can't use Ookla Speedtest on my phone while it's on LTE. I can only use it on Wifi. When I use it on LTE it says "Test Failed to Complete. Check your internet connection and try again. I contacted Ookla via Facebook chat and they said I have to talk to T-Mobile about this, that it's their network that is the problem. The weird thing is, this same thing was happening on the ATT phone. I went to T-Mobile today and they said they don't know anything about this Ookla Speedtest thing (which I find very hard to believe). I uninstalled the Speedtest and reinstalled it and restarted my phone and still this happens. I'm not very tech savvy so I don't know what to do now. We have another xs max on our account and his is working fine but he's in a high coverage area and probably not noticing any problem at all anyway.
I use this app a lot on my T-Mobile 8+. Works great.
 

brosenz

macrumors 6502
Apr 26, 2011
344
90
My serial starts with FF and I have the LTE/WiFi issues, iPhone XS Max on AT&T in NYC. There really doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason that I can determine. Also people keep mentioning how if you are in strong signal area you likely wou

. The Apple support engineer I sent logs and sys diagnose files to said they would get back to me after review. I'm getting increasingly frustrated about the whole experience. I stupidly had sold my iPhone 7+ during my XS Max purchase. Now I am in a "wait and see" position but it doesn't look like we are anywhere near a point to hear from Apple or a possible solution.

As mentioned previously, the Apple tech told me they may end up suggesting I get a phone replacement, but I have zero confidence that will fix anything. Many have already posted about getting replacement units to no benefit.
I have used this app with my iPhone XS Max and T-Mobile multiple times without any problem.
 

fastbagger

macrumors 6502
May 13, 2015
252
117
Interesting discussion as I have the same issues with my Xs Max. Today I removed phone from charger and drove about 3 miles to highway no signal whatsoever. On my 8 Plus the same trip sometimes the signal would drop to 3G but I always had signal than once I got close to highway full bars LTE. Today I had to reboot phone than it connected to LTE. I wonder if there is a switching issue that if loses LTE signal than difficult time reconnecting to LTE. I have until Friday to return 8 Plus. Verizon network BTW.
 
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cap7ainclu7ch

macrumors 6502
Jun 30, 2010
454
513
I know its not an indication of how it does with poor coverage, but I did just get 240Mbps down and 40Mbps up on Verizon LTE in Boston on my XS. Pretty impressive.
 

ksec

macrumors 68020
Dec 23, 2015
2,295
2,662
Why would they make that trade ?

I have no idea. My guess is to support higher LTE transfer speed? Android side has had 1Gbps LTE for quite a bit of time.
Now on paper this doesn't matter, I mean even if you are in Japan or Korea you don't get 1Gbps real life speed, but how much of that matter to marketing I have no idea.

And somewhere in the back of my mind is that the Antenna didn't work out. Apple has been working on 4x4 MIMO even before the switching to Intel modem. There were patents around new Antenna Design with new materials, and I was expecting that would announced it during the keynotes. Given nothing is mentioned about it, may be the current 4x4 implementation is a compromised solution.

I wish they would now spend more time and resources on their Antenna. It is really starting to bother me that iPhone has had subpar antenna design than Android, and that is true even before this XS happened, which makes it a little more noticeable.
 

Jtludwig

macrumors 6502
Mar 24, 2012
419
310
What do the armchair engineers have to say about this?

https://iphone.appleinsider.com/art...-iphone-x-cant-match-galaxy-note-9-or-pixel-2

Though a handful of early iPhone XS adopters are complaining about less-than-desirable cellular reception, a new test reveals Apple's latest flagship smartphones boast much improved LTE performance over last year's model.

Finally, the publication notes a bump in iPhone X performance when upgrading from iOS 11 to iOS 12. Notably, download speeds on an iPhone X running iOS 12 neared performance levels seen by Qualcomm versions of the device running iOS 11.

The test results arrive roughly one week after early iPhone XS and XS Max customers began to complain of poor cellular and Wi-Fi reception. Today's findings — lab tests in particular —
suggest Apple's hardware is not to blame, leaving hope that a firmware update will solve the sporadic issue.
 

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
I wonder what Consumer Reports is going to come up with since they've bashed Apple so much in the past!? :eek:

Consumer Reports doesn't know their head from their derriere when testing consumer electronics.

Just to comment a bit on the testing by PCmag. My first reaction was- wow this is a lot better than I was experiencing- I feel reassured.

However, this test in no way measures one off the most common use cases like signal re-acquisition like when coming out of an elevator or garage. This is where the modem is very slow - minutes rather than seconds in picking up good signal.

That is fascinating. The lab testing went all the way down to -131dBm. The problem is, they tested on B4, which has horrendous reach anyway. I want to see those band results on B12. Your point about signal re-acquisition is good too. A few stops on the NYC Subway would tell a lot about that.

I think many more on Verizon notice this issue because we always had the Qualcomm LTE/CDMA modem which was vastly superior to the Intel modems. Now that we have intel modems we suffer like the rest of you.

That's a good point. Also, Verizon customers care more about coverage, as they pay more for more of it. To add to your point, many of them have been conditioned in the pre-smartphone era to expect voice and text everywhere, with CDMA flip phones that would work on almost no signal, due to having Qualcomm CDMA. I've never been a huge CDMA fan, but it's weak signal performance on the 850mhz band is nothing short of incredible.
 
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thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
16,125
17,042
For people who think it’s hardware do you think it’s the new intel chipset or design? Or both?

Would seem new intel design if
Intel x fares better.

But the antenna layout is different too

Yikes for people affected

I haven’t upgraded
 

bushman4

macrumors 601
Mar 22, 2011
4,142
3,902
Waiting to see if this is a hardware or software issue. We'll soon know when Apple puts out its iOS 12 update.
which should be sometime this week
 

Lobwedgephil

macrumors 603
Apr 7, 2012
5,792
4,757
The most interesting part of those tests is that the XS modems performs very well in low signal settings, which is the opposite of being seen in this thread. Now of course real world is different, but shows it should perform well. Gives me hope for a software solution for all affected, the wifi issue is clearly software.
 

Herro177

macrumors newbie
Feb 28, 2018
20
5
Anyone notice signal is not returning when the phone loses reception momentarily. Switching airplane mode doesn't seem to fix it. The only way to regain signal is to reboot the phone. Wondering if mine is defective. Got a 512gb, so these are not readily available in store.
 

rebretz000

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2018
283
318

Nhwhazup

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2010
3,474
1,718
New Hampshire
My serial starts with FF and I have the LTE/WiFi issues, iPhone XS Max on AT&T in NYC. There really doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason that I can determine. Also people keep mentioning how if you are in strong signal area you likely wou

. The Apple support engineer I sent logs and sys diagnose files to said they would get back to me after review. I'm getting increasingly frustrated about the whole experience. I stupidly had sold my iPhone 7+ during my XS Max purchase. Now I am in a "wait and see" position but it doesn't look like we are anywhere near a point to hear from Apple or a possible solution.

As mentioned previously, the Apple tech told me they may end up suggesting I get a phone replacement, but I have zero confidence that will fix anything. Many have already posted about getting replacement units to no benefit.

Oh, I hear your frustration. I was in the same boat with poor cellular connectivity. My Max also had the charging issues as well. I was fortunate to still have my My 6S Plus to fall back on, so I could do the return last week.

This time around, I’ve really learned my lesson - hold off a month or so from launch dates and check MacRumors first.
[doublepost=1538474099][/doublepost]So are the ones with the XS not having these same connectivity issues as the Max?
 

rebretz000

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2018
283
318
I bought two iPhone XS's and they had connectivity issues. Of all the phones I have at my house they were by far the worst performance wise when trying to get a signal. I really hope it turns out to be nothing more than signal so I can reorder them. I would much rather have the XS than the XR.
Oh, I hear your frustration. I was in the same boat with poor cellular connectivity. My Max also had the charging issues as well. I was fortunate to still have my My 6S Plus to fall back on, so I could do the return last week.

This time around, I’ve really learned my lesson - hold off a month or so from launch dates and check MacRumors first.
[doublepost=1538474099][/doublepost]So are the ones with the XS not having these same connectivity issues as the Max?
 

apolloa

Suspended
Oct 21, 2008
12,318
7,802
Time, because it rules EVERYTHING!
For people who think it’s hardware do you think it’s the new intel chipset or design? Or both?

Would seem new intel design if
Intel x fares better.

But the antenna layout is different too

Yikes for people affected

I haven’t upgraded

The antenna I think is to blame. The reports seem to indicate the XR won’t have the same issues, and I think it has the same modem? The XS has a new antenna design, the first of its type in an iPhone.
 
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