We’ve hear plenty of whining about the new iPad and have had some good-natured fun reporting about it, but it’s no laughing matter when your swanky new tablet can’t get a good Wi-Fi signal when you need it most. Judging from a leaked AppleCare document, there may be a fix: Replacement.
9to5Mac is reporting that AppleCare has quietly started to replace new iPads that come to the Genius Bar complaining of Wi-Fi connectivity problems. The problem may manifest itself with a dropped connection from an otherwise strong signal, slow upload and/or download speeds or worse yet, not being able to latch onto a network at all.
Apple’s own support forum has been filling up with complaints about this very topic, with one thread having racked up 700 replies from frustrated users and no answers in sight. “It has absolutely nothing to do with routers,” one writes. “I am right next to my wife, to whom I gave my iPad 1: she has full bars and I have 1-2. FYI: on Speedtest near the router I get over 10 mb downloads; 20 feet away I get .2 mb downloads. That’s ridiculous.”
Apparently, Apple is taking these complaints seriously, as an internal AppleCare document leaked to 9to5Mac reveals. “In the United States, contact centers and retail stores should capture iPad (3rd generation) Wi-Fi only devices if they exhibit any issue related to Wi-Fi,” the screenshot reads.
According to a 9to5Mac source, “capture” is Apple code speak for replacing an affected iPad -- including AC adapter and USB cable -- and shipping it “to Apple’s engineering centers for examination and investigation.” It may not be a solid admission of the problem, but at least Cupertino is trying to get to the bottom of it.
If you’re rockin’ one of the Wi-Fi + 4G LTE models, there’s no need to sweat -- none of them seem to be affected by this Wi-Fi problem, presumably thanks to that patch of black on the back of the tablet allowing the full wireless signal into the new iPad. (Either that or you guys are spending all your time in the flast lane using LTE...)
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