New iPad 3: Weak Wi-Fi Reception Issue Upsets Users

By Surojit Chatterjee | March 23 2012 9:43 AM

Apple's third generation tablet, dubbed the new iPad, has been on sales for almost a week and it is coming to 24 more countries today. According to Apple, more than 3 million units of the new iPad have been sold. The new iPad is grabbing headlines, not just because it is a very popular product, but also it boasts of a marvelous screen resolution (2048 X 1536 pixels). However, the new Apple tablet is catching unwanted attention - users are complaining of poor Wi-Fi reception and the number of complainants is growing.

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Other than some cool new features, Apple's new toy is also gaining highlights for some bad reasons. You probably knew about the heating issues with the new iPad, but the Wi-Fi reception problem appears to be more annoying. Many users are upset about the weak Wi-Fi reception in the new tablet. Apple's official forum is lit up with users complaining about the poor Wi-Fi reception issue in the newly released tablet.

According to numerous reports on the official Apple forum, the new iPad is weak on Wi-Fi reception. The new tablet registers weak Wi-Fi only, while its predecessors (the original iPad and iPad2) and other Wi-Fi enabled devices are full on Wi-Fi strength. In some cases, there is no Wi-Fi network signal on the new iPad at all.

I am in a hotel with my laptop and new iPad. The laptop Wi-Fi reception is as strong as it gets, but the new iPad only registers a weak signal, wrote one user, who started the much-highlighted thread on Apple's official forum. This new thread sparked a fire on Apple's forum with more users reporting about weak Wi-Fi reception on their newly purchased tablet. The thread has so far received more than 250 replies and has been viewed over 17 thousand times.

A user says that the new iPad fails to hold Wi-Fi for more than few minutes. Another problem!

My third-generation iPad has much worse range than my iPad 1. In the two places I use it most - my driveway and down the hall at work - I have solid connections for iPad 1, iPhone 4s, and Macbook. New iPad - Nothing. Not a thing, says another user.

At the moment, we cannot predict whether the problem is with hardware or software. It could be a manufacturing fault like the antenna problem in iPhone 4. But that looks unlikely as some users say that they do not notice any Wi-Fi related problem on the new iPad. Possibly it is a software bug like battery drain problem in iPhone 4S. Hopefully, Apple will release a software update soon to fix this problem.

Do you also have Wi-Fi reception problem with your new Apple tablet? Let us know about it.

(reported by Johnny Wills, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)

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