Wifi 7 issues on iPhone 16 Pro & Pro Max

You're missing the point. Apple only fully clarified the iPhone 16’s WiFi specs in early October, after launch. At launch, only the iPhone 15's WiFi 6E specs were clearly outlined, with 160 MHz bandwidth. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get official specifications from Apple, and the information on WiFi 7 performance was vague at best, making it far from “absolutely clear” until people started pushing for answers.

Also, regarding "1.7 GHz" – I assume you meant speed rather than radio frequency,WiFi 7 should allow speeds up to 4 Gbps at its full 320 MHz spec. The purpose of WiFi 7 is to push performance beyond prior standards, and this limitation holds it back other competitors do have fully implemented specifications and dont mislead the general consumers. If the device can’t deliver true WiFi 7 speeds, it shouldn’t be labeled as such. This is misleading to those who invested in the iPhone 16 expecting full WiFi 7 capabilities.

The Qualcomm chipset hardware in the iPhone 16 Pro Max is 320MHz capable, but Apple inexplicably limits it through iOS. That’s why Apple should either publicly explain their rationale or release a software update.

Yes, I know this is a user-to-user forum, which is why I didn’t address Apple in my posts here.

The purpose of my posts were to share my findings with fellow despairing consumers what I found when I went about figuring out whether the issue is a hardware or a software one. Then they too can manage their expectation for a software update, and hopefully feel urged to demand one from Apple like I did.

To demand a software update, I called Apple Support, but as they don’t publicly reveal which Wi-Fi+Bluetooth+5G chipsets are under the hoods of their iPhones (which by the way is understandable because that’s the industry practice), they didn’t confirm nor deny that the issue is a software one, therefore, neither could they confirm or deny that a software update is round the corner.

Hi, apologies to folks here. After diving deeper to get more information about wireless communication hardware in the iPhone 16 Pro Max, I found this webpage which describes what was found in a teardown. The teardown reveals that the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module is not from Qualcomm, it is the USI Global Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Module 339S01463. The 5G modem is SDX71M from Qualcomm.

I am still trying to find out more about the USI Global Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Module 339S01463 to know whether it provides channel bandwidth @ 320MHz. Info will be shared once found.

[Edited by Moderator]

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