Some Report Sluggish WiFi, Shorter Battery Life on Apple’s New iOS 8
Apple’s iOS 8 appears to be dogging certain users with buggy WiFi and poor battery life, among other glitches.
As noted by blog site Tech 2 on Monday, some users chiming in on Apple’s support forum are reporting WiFi-related problems, specifically performance issues and connectivity failures.
One user said that the WiFi speed keeps dropping on an iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display, and iPhone 5s after upgrading to Apple’s latest mobile operating system. Another person said the WiFi connection seems to be intermittent on iOS devices, and a third complained that since the iOS 8 update, WiFi will start to work and then slow to a crawl.
Another user grappled over the issue with Apple support and reported the following results:
“Chatted with Apple support and they had me do a restore and set up as new. I did that since I’m seeing other glitches in iOS 8. It seemed to work after that, but I only tested for a few minutes and didn’t do the ping test (which I should have done, as that would have given me a definitive answer). I then restored my backup and the issues returned. Apple support implied if restoring as new didn’t fix the problem, then it’s a hardware problem. Considering the number of reports about this, he can’t be correct.”
The familiar battery drain issue also seems to have reared its ugly head with some iOS 8 users. In another Apple support forum thread, one person said the battery drains from 100 percent to zero in around four hours with minimal usage. Another user reported that since the iOS 8 upgrade, the battery drains incredibly fast on his iPhone 5 and his wife’s model as well.
So far, the battery drain issue is taking up only a single page in Apple’s support forum, so it’s difficult to tell how common or widespread the problem may be. Battery drain is a frequently reported issue following each new version of iOS, but there are steps users can take to preserve battery life. As one example, in iOS 8, you can now identify which specific apps are hogging your battery life the most and either reduce your time on the battery-sucker or just rid yourself of the app entirely.
Another issue cited by Tech 2 is sheer performance. As discussed in a MacRumors support forum, some users of older devices say performance is slower after upgrading to iOS 8. In particular, Safari seems to load pages more slowly, at least for a couple of people sharing their feedback on the forum.
Reports of technical issues are par for the course whenever Apple upgrades its mobile OS. In lieu of simpler and more specific fixes, one suggested solution is to reset your settings back to their default values to see if the problem clears up. The next step usually involves resetting your entire device back to factory settings (make sure to back up all your content in iTunes first) and then restoring it from your backup.
If the problems persist, then a call to Apple support or a visit to your local Genius bar is your next best bet. If the issue is widespread enough, then Apple will usually investigate and issue a fix if necessary. We’ll have to see if the issues reported so far prove problematic enough for Apple to step in.
CNET contacted Apple for comment and will update the story with any further information.
