Apple's latest iPhone was officially released on Friday, and some early users are reporting intermittent Wi-Fi connection issues with the device. Many iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air users have posted on platforms such as MacRumors forum, Reddit and Apple Support Community that their mobile phone Wi-Fi connections are periodically interrupted.
After unlocking iPhone, Wi-Fi briefly disconnects and reconnects. The question has received hundreds of comments in the past four days alone. The actual scope of the problem is unclear.
Since Apple's CarPlay function relies on Wi-Fi networks, this issue has also caused some users' CarPlay connections to be interrupted.
Many users have also noted that they are more likely to experience this issue when wearing and unlocking a paired Apple Watch, but it's unclear if that's the entire reason.
It's unclear whether this is a hardware or software issue, but Apple has usually been able to fix it through software updates in the past. iOS 26.0.1 is reportedly coming soon, but it's unclear whether Apple will be able to develop a fix in time.
For the first time, the four new iPhones are equipped with Apple’s self-developed N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread interconnection. Previously, iPhones all used Broadcom’s wireless network chips.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Arun Mathias, Apple's vice president of wireless software technology, emphasized the energy efficiency advantages of the N1 chip. Mathias said: "What many users may not understand is that your Wi-Fi access point actually helps position the device, so there is no need to use the more energy-intensive GPS. The chip can perform positioning efficiently in the background without having to wake up the application processor frequently, which can significantly reduce power consumption."
Apple also mentioned in the press release that the N1 chip improves the performance and stability of functions such as personal hotspot and AirDrop.
Unfortunately, some users are currently finding that the N1 chip is not very stable on Wi-Fi connections.