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