Mikey Campbell
A 91-page thread on Apple's Support Communities webpage illustrates what appears to be a significant problem with upgrading iPhone 4S and third-generation iPads to the company's newest mobile operating system, iOS 6.
Forum members report that after upgrading to iOS 6, both the legacy iPhone 4S and new iPad are experiencing disabled Wi-Fi connectivity that leaves the option to connect "grayed out." The issue appears to be affecting Bluetooth capabilities as well, with some users claiming their units are unable to pair or even recognize other devices, and show the spinning "search wheel" indefinitely.
Another set of users have the ability to turn Wi-Fi on in Settings, but are unable to connect to their local network.
Both the nature and extent of the purported iOS 6 complications are unknown, including whether the two issues are related, though many affected users who have contacted Apple say the company is aware of the problems.
A number of fixes have been suggested, including a hard reset and reinstallation of iOS 6, but the most effective seems to be resetting Network Settings and changing the HTTP Proxy to "Auto."
For those who are seeing a completely grayed out Wi-Fi toggle switch in Settings, a few users have had luck with downgrading to iOS 5.1, suggesting the issue is exclusive to iOS 6. Other members have successfully exchanged their affected iPhones for new hardware after demonstrating the grayed out Wi-Fi option to staff at the Apple Store Genius Bar, though it is unclear if handset replacement is the usual course of action.
When iOS 6 was released on Sept. 19, a number of early adopters suffered from Wi-Fi issues, however Apple was able to trace the problem back to a downed verification page which was quickly repaired.
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45 Comments
Home Sharing Problems Also Noted after iOS 6 (sicks) Upgrade. The following Apple Support Community forum addresses this problem. https://discussions.apple.com/message/19645743#19645743 AI thank you for making this story a headline. GB
91 pages at 15 post per page and assuming it's all unique posts, that would be 1365 affected out of the 1 million upgrades to iOS6. It affects .1% of the users who upgraded, so yea it's definitely an issue with iOS6. I upgraded one 4 and two 4s, and didn't see the problem. I guess I'm part of the 99.9%.
I haven't had the described problem with the wifi 'greyed out', but I have noticed significant reduction in where my iOS 6 devices can pick up my Airport Extreme router's signal since upgrading. With iOS 5, I could easily pick up signal into my front and back yards, but now I lose signal at certain places inside my home that were never a 'low signal' area before.
There is another very serious underlying issue with WiFi in iOS6... read here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/19654874#19654874
Must we make every little problem news these days? 91-page thread and the solution is to reset your hardware? Another failed complaint! Wanna know how often I need to restart Windows 7 each day? Should this be news too?