Apple doing 'outreach' to address weak LTE for some iPhone XS & XS Max owners

Apple is reaching out to some iPhone XS and XS Max owners suffering from LTE connection problems, which have been ongoing since the devices shipped in September.

Those affected by the issue have encountered weaker connections than with earlier iPhones, even devices as recent as 2017's iPhone 8 and X. The problem is inconsistent however, as some other XS owners have seen no trouble, or even improvements.

"Apple just reached out to me to see if I could answer some questions about my XS Max reception issues," Twitter user Devin Meredith wrote on Wednesday, adding that "they're doing an outreach to some affected users and are asking to install a baseband logger to track my connection to the tower."

The root of the problem is uncertain. While hardware defects are a possibility, it could also be a software glitch, whether in iOS or carrier firmware. Apple has pushed out software updates for similar issues in the past.

Sources inside Apple not authorized to speak on behalf of the company have confirmed to AppleInsider that there is a "limited data collection effort" in progress.

Apple is already testing iOS 12.1, which could include related fixes. If the issue is deemed serious enough however, the company could push out a smaller interim fix.

The current outreach was first highlighted by MacRumors.

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25 Comments

curtis hannah

said about 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure this happens with every new iPhone generation. It's good Apple is working to most likely fix the software issue with those few that suffer the issue.

netrox

said about 5 years ago

its always easy to overlook the real life practices when you're just testing in contrived environments.

caccamucca

said about 5 years ago

So, I have the new iPhone XS Max that I took delivery on the first day it was available and had connectivity issues for about a week. Called Verizon twice and they claimed that it wasn’t their problem. There is a fix so read on.

I noticed the problem whenever I leave the area of my WiFi connections either from home or at work. So, I’d leave my home and drive away, my WiFi drops and LTE doesn’t pick up. I would have no data connection but had voice service. I was able to place a call to Verizon from now iPhone and ended up resetting my network connection only on my iPhone (Reset Network Settings). That work around worked until next day.

Next day leaving work, I had the same issue. Worked fine all day on WiFi, get into my car and no data but had voice only like the day before. Drove through an area and I saw LTE go away and when the iPhone picked up 3G, I had data again, albeit slower connection.

Next day, leaving home, same issue; called Verizon and they told me it wasn’t their end. I then reset the iPhone by Resetting the Network Setting and that resolved the issue. I was prepared to reset the network 2 to 3 times a day until I could go to Apple Store and all of sudden, the issue went away on its own. So, fix for me ended up being 2 maybe 3 network only resets.

macxpress

said about 5 years ago

I've had this issue with my iPhone XS since I've had it. I just reboot the phone and the signal goes back to normal for a while...then I reboot and it comes back again for a while, etc.