Shoppers complain about poor reception on the iPhone Xs & Xs Max

Is Apple planning a new Antenna gate? Several buyers of the new iPhone models complain of a poorer reception than with older iPhone models. Pre-sales metrics confirm weaker reception of the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max.

 

If you buy a smartphone for 1,650 euros, you will not necessarily receive the device with the best technical features. This has already shown our test of the iPhone Xs Max and users complain, among other things, on Reddit and Apple’s support forums on a much weaker reception in mobile use and WLAN operation. The reception characteristics compared to older iPhone models were compared here. The observations are not surprising, because even before the sales launch of the equipment documents of the US regulator FCC have shown that the new iPhone models have relatively weak reception characteristics.

 

Many owners of an iPhone Xs or iPhone Xs Max complain that they generally have a weaker reception in the mobile network than with an older iPhone model. With older models, those affected have LTE coverage in one place, while the new iPhone model here usually no longer offers LTE reception, so that the mobile Internet use is correspondingly limited. Even with telephone calls, the poorer reception performance should be noticed, because the caller understands the iPhone owner less well because of the poor reception. Golem.de can confirm that when driving in the Berlin subway the connection is broken, while we had in the same place with other smartphones mobile reception.

 

Also with the WLAN receipt problems are reported. This shows a similar error, the Wi-Fi reception is significantly worse at the same place than with a previous iPhone model. Especially with the use of the 5 GHz Wi-Fi network problems occur and the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max then unnecessarily change to the 2.4 GHz network, although the inherently smaller range of the 5 GHz network would have to suffice. Those affected report that they can use their own WLAN with other devices in the 5 GHz network in the same location, but not with the new iPhones.

 

The descriptions are not surprising. The US regulator FCC had examined both new iPhone models before the launch on the receiving properties. The readings were analyzed by blogger Andrew J Shepherd and already pointed out in mid-September 2018 that the new models are performing poorer in terms of reception performance. This has now come true in practice, as the reactions of the buyers of an iPhone Xs or an iPhone Xs Max show.

 

Apple has been asked by a number of US media to comment on this, but so far has not responded. Thus, it is currently unclear whether the reception problems may be eliminated with a software update or at least mitigated.

 

With the iPhone 4, the term Antennagate was coined. At that time, a design flaw meant that iPhone buyers could no longer make phone calls if they held the smartphone in a certain way in the hand. Affected customers had to live with these restrictions, Apple did not revise the devices and did not exchange them. Some shoppers just got a shell for free that circumvented the problems. That meant, however, that the iPhone owners could use their device only with the shell reasonably.