iPhone users are reporting Wi-Fi issues on iOS 17
Is your iPhone acting up when connected to a Wi-Fi network? The issue seems to be plaguing iOS 17 users, not just ones who bought a new iPhone 15.
The bug comes right in the wake of overheating problems on the iPhone 15 models, which Apple had confirmed. The Cupertino company had fixed the said issue in a hotfix that was included in the iOS 17.0.3 update that was released a few days ago.
iOS 17 Wi-Fi issues are affecting many users
Coming to the Wi-Fi issues, Emre wrote about a similar network problem with macOS 14 Sonoma. But it appears to be a more widespread issue in iOS 17. Many of the complaints are from users who said that apps are not loading web content quickly on their iPhone. Other users reported that their device was disconnecting from their wireless network randomly. The most common workaround that users had been trying is to disable and re-enable their Wi-Fi, or to just toggle Airplane mode, to get the connection to work properly on their iPhone. But, this is a temporary fix, as the Wi-Fi becomes slow again after a while. Some advanced users had even changed their Wi-Fi channel range to 20/40/80MHz to fix the spotty connection. A few people claim that they had this issue even before iOS 17 was released, however I am not able to verify these reports.
Interestingly, the problem is not limited to the iPhone 15 models. Several users have complained that they are experiencing a similar problem on their older iPhones after they had upgraded to iOS 17. 9to5Mac reports that they faced the issues on their iPhone 15 Pro Max and M2 iPad Pro, but their Mac, which was connected to the same network, was not affected by the problem.
A few users have suggested that disabling Private Relay fixed the slow Wi-Fi problem on their iPhones. I'm not quite sure whether this is a proper solution, because Private Relay is part of Apple's iCloud+ premium subscription. And, it's sort of a VPN, so yes it will be slower than your regular Wi-Fi, that is to be expected. The thing is, not everyone has iCloud+, and the feature works only in Safari, so it is unlikely that Private Relay could be the culprit that is causing your Wi-Fi to load pages or other apps slowly. It has to be some other bug. Hopefully, Apple will address the problem in a future update. The company has been testing iOS 17.1 over the past few weeks, the stable version of the update could be released to users later this month.
Note: You will need your Wi-Fi's password before trying the following step. If you had someone else set up the router/network for you, and you can't remember what it is, you may want to ask your network provider for assistance.
You may want to try removing your Wi-Fi connection on your iPhone. To do this, open the Settings app > Tap on Wi-Fi. Select the Wi-Fi network that you use, and then tap on the "forget this network" option at the top of the screen. Go back to the previous screen, and tap on the Wi-Fi network's name, you will be prompted to enter the password. This may or may not help resolve the issue, but it is a basic troubleshooting step that you should try when experiencing problems with your network on any device.
I can't say that I've faced these iOS 17 Wi-Fi issues on my iPhone 13. That said, I did have a problem with the battery draining quickly, and overheating issues ever since I upgraded from iOS 16. However, the recent iOS 17.0.3 update seems to have fixed both problems, or has at least mitigated them to some extent.
