Photo : Raul Marrero ( Gizmodo ) It wouldn’t be an iPhone launch without a small army of hand-wringing Apple fans complaining about their expensive new phones on the internet. This year is no exception, and forums are filling up with reports of issues with the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. None of the problems are particularly catastrophic. At least not yet. Advertisement Before we get into the details, it’s worth pointing out that the iPhone XS devices are brand new. They’ve been out in the wild for less than two weeks. The public release of iOS 12 is equally new, although it enjoyed many months in beta-testing. So it’s not necessarily a surprise that a new iPhone with new software will suffer from a few bugs. We’ve seen it happen before—most notably in 2010, the year of Antennagate—and we’ll see it again. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be pissed off if your iPhone XS is all messed up. We’re making a running list of the widespread complaints about the new phones, and we encourage you to add your own grievances in the comments. You can also email me tips directly. Chargegate Indeed, we’ve got another -gate on our hands. While Antennagate dealt with an issue that caused the iPhone 4 to lose reception if you held it a certain way, this so-called Chargegate involves iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices that won’t charge when plugged into a Lightning cable. Multiple threads in Apple’s Support Communities and MacRumors forums claim that some devices won’t charge when you plug in a cable. Some of them will start charging if you wake the device. Some won’t charge via cable at all. Update 3:05pm ET: A chargegate fix is reportedly on the way with the coming release of iOS 12.1. There’s some consensus that this must be a software issue. Not all devices experience the problem and not all that do experience it all the time. The issue also doesn’t appear to be specific to the larger or smaller phone. Wireless charging also appears to be working fine. If you want to see what Chargegate looks like in real time, you’re free to suffer through this yelling-heavy video from YouTuber Unbox Therapy Apple so far has not acknowledged this issue. Some people think it might not be linked to iOS 12 or the iPhone XS series at all, but rather to updated security settings in iOS 11.4.1. This change meant that an iPhone’s Lightning port might not recognize a USB accessory, including a charging cable if the locked phone had been idle for some time. Here’s how Apple explained that update when it was released in July: If you don’t first unlock your password-protected iOS device—or you haven’t unlocked and connected it to a USB accessory within the past hour—your iOS device won’t communicate with the accessory or computer, and in some cases, it might not charge. You might also see an alert asking you to unlock your device to use accessories. Advertisement If this indeed what’s causing the charging issue, it’s unclear why people are just now complaining about the change. One possible explanation is that people who just spent over $1,000 on a new iPhone are paying extra close attention to how it works. We won’t know for sure until Apple offers an explanation. It’s also possible that a nasty bug is causing Chargegate, and that sucks. Sucks to get an expensive new phone, plug it in to charge before bed, and then wake up with a dead phone. It also sucks to go online and see an army of other Apple people are about to storm the castle in Cupertino over the same problem. Or maybe that’s comforting, in a weird way. Advertisement Antennagate 2.0 Okay, nobody is calling this Antennagate 2.0, but this series of complaints is similar to what we saw so many years ago. It seems even more confounding, though, because it doesn’t involve how a person holds an iPhone. Advertisement A number of iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max users—many of them on the Verizon network—say that they’re getting worse reception than they used to in certain areas. The signal also seems to be cutting out intermittently. Here’s how one person described it in the MacRumors forums: I’m in South Carolina on VZW. My iPhone X consistently holds 3 or 4 bars of LTE in my home with solid speeds. I activated XS Max yesterday and upon first activating/connecting LTE (reboot, airplane mode, etc.) I get nearly identical performance. Within a minute or two, the signal degrades and data stops working. Disabling LTE results in a full 3G signal with 3G data - no issues, rock solid. Re-enabling LTE works for a minute or two. Lather rinse repeat. Advertisement One theory that’s been floated about this involves Apple’s shift from Qualcomm modems to those made by Intel for customers of legacy CDMA carriers like Verizon and Sprint. Basically, those people used to have Qualcomm modems might see worse LTE service in fringe areas, due to some never-ending patent dispute. Others simply blame the issue on Apple’s new antenna design and say it can’t be fixed. These connectivity problems don’t appear to be limited to LTE, either. A separate group of people is complaining about slower wifi speeds with the new iPhone XS series. This issue, however, appears to be a bug related to how the device switches between 2.4GHz and 5GHz. It looks like these folks suffered speed issues because their phones were switching between the two networks and sometimes defaulting to the slower 2.4GHz network. This is thankfully something that Apple can probably fix in an iOS update. Advertisement Camera stuff I almost called this one Cameragate, but that seems overly dramatic compared to the other two batches of complaints. That’s because this seems like a feature, not a bug. Advertisement Forum folks are also talking about excessive skin-smoothing in photos taken with the iPhone XS camera, especially the front-facing selfie camera. Some have even called it a beauty filter since it’s especially noticeable on photos of faces. If you zoom in close enough, you’ll see that the iPhone XS images have a softer quality. We noticed it in our testing, though it seemed related less to an unwanted beauty effect that Apple hasn’t said anything about, and more about reducing noise in low-light images. Unboxed Therapy did an annoying video about this issue, too. But as this Medium post explains, this isn’t happening because something is wrong with the iPhone XS camera. The smoother appearance of iPhone XS cameras is related to the new Smart HDR feature which combines multiple exposures to produce a better image with more realistic contrast. Because the iPhone software is getting rid of too-bright highlights and too-dark shadows, more textured images, including photos of skin, appear to be smoother. This noise reduction is necessary because the iPhone is taking multiple photos at once, each with a shorter shutter speed and higher ISO. The Smart HDR software combines these images and removes the noise. Zooming in to rough textures might reveal some loss of local contrast and make those textures appear smoother. Advertisement Don’t like this? Great news, evidence suggests that turning off Smart HDR in the camera settings might remove some of the smoothing. Another option? Don’t zoom in super close on someone’s skin. More problems? Let us know in the comments. We’ll update this post as necessary.<doc-sep>Apple's(NASDAQ: AAPL) latest iPhone models cost $1,000 or more, but users already have a list of complaints about them. The iPhone XS and larger iPhone XS Max became available for pre-order on Sept. 14 and shipped out on Sept. 21. So far, some users have been vocal about some fairly big bugs, including charging and connectivity issues. Apple also has a cheaper $749 iPhone XR, but it won't come out until the end of October. Considering the 5.8-inch XS starts at $999 and the 6.5-inch XS Max starts at $1,099, users have a right to expect Apple to quickly fix these early bugs on its new lineup of smartphones. Let's hope the latest iOS 12 update will provide a better experience. A girl is shown holding the new iPhone XS. Apple's new iPhone XS has had mixed reviews from its early adopters. Image source: Apple. 1. Charging issues A number of people complained in Apple's support communities about charging issues with their iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max. According to the posts, some customers were having trouble charging their new smartphones with a lightning cable. Some users said that although their phones wouldn't charge in sleep mode, they would start charging once they were "woken up." But nobody wants to have to keep their phone on the whole time they're charging their device. And furthermore, other users said their phone wouldn't charge at all, awake or asleep. 2. Reception issues The second complaint against the new iPhones is their weak reception. Users claim that their old iPhones had better reception in certain places than their new iPhone, which is obviously frustrating when you've forked out around $1,000 for the latest model. However, this problem wasn't universal across all the new iPhones, and Apple has reached out to certain affected users to work through the issue. 3. Camera over-smoothing effect This complaint might not be as serious as the first two complaints, but it's lit up the Apple forums nonetheless. Some owners of the new iPhones have been complaining that the camera on the new models over-smooths peoples' skin. But this effect isn't Apple's way of giving people an automatic Photoshop job. Instead, Apple has been working on noise reduction on the pictures its camera takes to help it work better in low light conditions. While this update is a good thing, it also creates a softer look that makes skin look slightly airbrushed. Story continues 4. Wi-Fi connectivity issues Besides LTE reception problems, new iPhone users have also been complaining about slower Wi-Fi speeds compared to their old iPhones. This turned out to be an issue with the iPhone XS devices automatically joining Wi-Fi networks in 2.4GHz, even if both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands were available. Apple rolls out iOS 12 update to address concerns On Oct. 9, Apple released an update to iOS 12 that it claims will fix some of the main complaints such as the charging and Wi-Fi connectivity issues. Here's a list of the iOS 12 bug fixes: Fixes an issue where some iPhone XS devices did not immediately charge when connected to a Lightning cable Resolves an issue that could cause iPhone XS devices to rejoin a Wi-Fi network at 2.4GHz instead of 5GHz Restores the original position of the ". ?123" key on the iPad keyboard Fixes an issue where subtitles may not appear in some video apps Addresses an issue where Bluetooth could become unavailable Apple users should be encouraged to see the company quickly rolling out fixes for their complaints. They should also be pleased that Apple actually reached out to its early adopters to ask them about their negative experiences because it shows that the company clearly cares about giving its users the best experience possible. And Apple isn't alone in having issues with its new devices. In fact, it's normal and almost expected for just-released smartphones to have bugs that need to be addressed. And as long as the iPhones don't start spontaneously catching on fire like the infamous Samsung(NASDAQOTH: SSNLF)Galaxy Note 7, customers seem likely to be more than willing to forgive and forget. More From The Motley Fool Natalie Walters has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.<doc-sep>
Apple's iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max launched last Friday, and shortly after, some customers who purchased one of the new devices started noticing an issue with LTE and Wi-Fi speeds and connectivity. According to multiple threads on the MacRumors forums, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max users are experiencing connectivity problems with Wi-Fi and LTE on the two new iPhones when compared to other, older Apple devices. Multiple users have said that there are noticeable differences in cellular reception between the iPhone XS models and the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, with a 15-page thread suggesting this is a widespread problem that quite a few people are noticing. As described by MacRumors reader onepoint: I'm in South Carolina on VZW. My iPhone X consistently holds 3 or 4 bars of LTE in my home with solid speeds. I activated XS Max yesterday and upon first activating/connecting LTE (reboot, airplane mode, etc.) I get nearly identical performance. Within a minute or two, the signal degrades and data stops working. Disabling LTE results in a full 3G signal with 3G data - no issues, rock solid. Re-enabling LTE works for a minute or two. Lather rinse repeat. Users are noticing fewer bars and poorer signal on iPhone XS and XS Max compared to devices like the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, especially in areas where signal is weak. Many of the complaints come from Verizon users, suggesting the issue could potentially be carrier specific. Multiple AT&T users, for example, have said the signal is the same or better, while Verizon users are seeing signal issues. Some iPhone XS owners have theorized that the issue is related to Qualcomm vs. Intel modems. The new iPhone XS and XS Max are using Intel modems, while older devices used a mix of Qualcomm and Intel modems. AT&T iPhone 8 and iPhone X models used Intel modems previously, while Verizon iPhones had Qualcomm modems. As explained by MacRumors reader radiologyman: That seems to be the thinking in the other forum thread linked below. People who went from Qualcomm to Intel may see worsening in fringe areas while those who went from Intel to Intel may see an improvement. Both groups can see faster LTE signal due to carrier aggregation and 4 MIMO implemented in XS and XS Max. Some AT&T and T-Mobile users are, however, complaining of connectivity problems too, while others have noticed better signal, leading to a confusing mix of user reports. It's not clear if modem differences are causing the perceived connectivity issues that iPhone XS and XS Max owners are noticing or if there is a genuine bug with the new devices, but in the days following a new iPhone release, there are often carrier updates that can solve connectivity problems. Given the confusing mix of information coming from users on the forums, the LTE connectivity problems may be related to software and could be fixed through the aforementioned carrier update or a software update from Apple, but we'll have to wait for more information to figure out exactly what's going on. In addition to the LTE problems, there appears to be a separate issue with Wi-Fi. On the MacRumors forums, users began noticing slower Wi-Fi speeds on iPhone XS models compared to other Apple devices, which readers quickly deduced was a 2.4GHz vs. 5GHz Wi-Fi issue. It appears that the iPhone XS and XS Max are preferring 2.4GHz networks over 5GHz networks when connecting to routers that use the same SSID for both the 2.4 and 5GHz bands. From MacRumors reader playtillyadrop: I'm having the same problems. On my x it will hold the 5ghz connection compared to the XS max which likes to hold on to the 2.4ghz connection. I'm using google WIFI. All my nodes are connected wired. I know it's not my wifi and it's related to the xs max. It seems as if it prefers the stronger signal over throughput. My x performs better. I can check through the google wifi app and it takes forever for the xs max to pick the 5ghz connection. The majority of people experiencing slower speeds found that their iPhone XS models were indeed connected to the 2.4GHz network rather than the 5GHz network. In our own testing, we found that when comparing an iPhone XS Max and an iPhone X, the iPhone XS Max connected to the 2.4GHz network while the iPhone X connected to the 5GHz network.