iOS software GENIUS TIPS
iOS software
Swipe away your touchscreen troubles and
rekindle your love of Apple’s mobile devices
iOS software
quick-fire
questionsBluetooth slows
Wi-Fi down
performance, and shouldn’t suffer any
significant radio interference. However, if this
doesn’t solve your problem, you will need to
look for other sources of interference which
might have coincidentally started.
There are other free tools available which
can help with this, such as Ofcom’s Mobile And
Broadband Checker, and Fing – both of which
are available from the App Store.How to download in
iPlayer over 4G
mobile data?
> Some services and
apps, like BBC iPlayer,
limit download or
streaming of video, even
on a 4G connection.
Other commercial
services, such as
Amazon, now support
this. One workaround is
to make your iPhone a
mobile hotspot, and
download from that
over Wi-Fi to your iPad,
which is permitted.How to tell the
Wi-Fi channel my
iPhone is using?
> Install Apple’s free
AirPort Utility from the
App Store. Open that
app in Settings, and
enable Wi-Fi Scanner. In
the AirPort Utility app
tap Wi-Fi Scan at the top
right, then tap Scan
to see channel details.
Remember to disable
Wi-Fi Scanner in
Settings afterwards
to save power.Q
Since upgrading both my iPhone and
iPad to iOS 12.4, their Wi-Fi speed
has dropped from 36Mbps to less
than 1Mbps. Normal speed is restored when
I turn their Bluetooth off. How can I restore
their Wi-Fi speed without having to do that?
by TONY LANGHAMA
This is most likely to occur
when both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
are contending for the same 2.4GHz
radio frequencies. The issue has probably
come to light here because of the increasing
use of both wireless modes to integrate iOS
devices and Macs, which has greatly
increased local radio traffic.
One quick trick you can try is to turn off
an iOS device, and move it to a point out of
range of any other Bluetooth devices, but
well within your Wi-Fi range. Turn it on again
there and it should enjoy full speed Wi-Fi
connections again.
Configure your Wi-Fi router so that its
2.4GHz and 5GHz services have slightly
different names, but common password and
other details. Then in Settings on each iOSdevice, go to Wi-Fi to configure this ‘new’ 5GHz
network, and enable it. You can then disable
the old 2.4GHz network, keeping that in
reserve in case of problems with your router.
This should restore your previous Wi-FiThe increasing use of 2.4
and 5GHz to integrate
devices has greatly
increased radio traffic
macformat.com @macformat DECEMBER 2019 | MACFORMAT | 55If your Wi-Fi has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz support, give each
network a different name so you can run on 5GHz for speed.