14 DAY TRIAL // New-generation MacBook Air models have Wi-Fi issues. So much so that thousands of customers have flocked to Apple’s forums to complain, making it clear that the problem affects a particular model and is more than widespread.
Apple forum user vhkim reported in June 2013, “I have a brand new Macbook Air which is able to connect to the internet for just a minute or two before suddenly it drops out.”
“This is even though the signal still shows at full strength and all my other devices are still able to surf the net as per normal.”
1,960 replies are available at the time of this writing, with the thread being visited more than 360,000 times since the issue was first reported.
Most users are experiencing similar problems, in what would seem to be a flaw involving the new 802.11ac wireless standard. However, things are more complicated than that, as not even 802.11n connections seem to work for some.
Inquiring about a potential fix, MacNN spoke to an Apple support employee who told the site that a fix for “any reported Wi-Fi connectivity issue not related to hardware failure” was on the way.
Unfortunately, this employee was unable to produce a definitive launch date. Consultant Jeff Geerling of Midwestern Mac seems to have more information about the problem.
He tells the site that he has it “on pretty good authority that Mac OS X 10.9.2 (to be released any day now) will fix at least the latency issue -- and possibly the dropped connections as well.”
Apple has so far issued several betas of OS X 10.9.2 to developers with instructions to test areas such as Mail, Messages, Graphics Drivers, VoiceOver, VPN, and SMB2. The company usually ends up tweaking hundreds of aspects, not only the ones named in the seed notes.