Modem died on iPhone 14 Pro Max after updating to 18.6.2

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Modem died on iPhone 14 Pro Max after updating to 18.6.2

hi all, being a little upset (to put it mildly) just wanted to share my vexing story. I've been using apple products since 2010 starting with iPhone 4. Since then I only had one breakdown - my iPhone 6 max partially lost wifi reception back in 2016, it was disappointing but I just swapped it to an iPhone 7 max and considered it a bad luck. Since then I had lots of iPhones, iPads, MacBooks etc.. Of course as everybody else I felt increasingly annoyed by iOS getting more and more odd bugs starting with iOS 17. This led to running my main iPhone 14 Pro Max on 16.7.2 as I was waiting for getting a more stable iOS 17 and watching reviews. Then iOS 18 came out and I started to wait for a stable iOS 18. For those 3 past years since 2022 my phone was running brilliantly and never let me down until this morning when I saw a review that 18.6.2 is finally almost perfect, so I decided to finally update my phone and get some new experience. and I surely got it. My phone got updated just fine but lost connection to the cellular network. I rebooted but still got "no service". my other esim plan did not activate either and was unclickable. So I rebooted, kept swapping SIM cards but to no avail. Finally I did the final "nuclear" thing - full restore from a recovery mode using my MacBook. I got a new clean phone but the cellular module is still not working. Plus the button "add new esim" disappeared either. I tried using other SIM cards of different providers, tried swapping region and nothing helped. Looks like upgrading from iOS 16 straight to iOS 18.6.2 just killed the modem. I don't believe in such coincidences... Should I look at this as an impetus for getting a new iPhone?.. I don't know. I brought it to the repair shop and now waiting for the verdict... Why is everything like that????

iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 18

Posted on Sep 14, 2025 10:56 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 14, 2025 12:05 PM in response to tremor_real

tremor_real wrote:

hi all, being a little upset (to put it mildly) just wanted to share my vexing story. I've been using apple products since 2010 starting with iPhone 4. Since then I only had one breakdown - my iPhone 6 max partially lost wifi reception back in 2016, it was disappointing but I just swapped it to an iPhone 7 max and considered it a bad luck. Since then I had lots of iPhones, iPads, MacBooks etc.. Of course as everybody else I felt increasingly annoyed by iOS getting more and more odd bugs starting with iOS 17. This led to running my main iPhone 14 Pro Max on 16.7.2 as I was waiting for getting a more stable iOS 17 and watching reviews. Then iOS 18 came out and I started to wait for a stable iOS 18. For those 3 past years since 2022 my phone was running brilliantly and never let me down until this morning when I saw a review that 18.6.2 is finally almost perfect, so I decided to finally update my phone and get some new experience. and I surely got it. My phone got updated just fine but lost connection to the cellular network. I rebooted but still got "no service". my other esim plan did not activate either and was unclickable. So I rebooted, kept swapping SIM cards but to no avail. Finally I did the final "nuclear" thing - full restore from a recovery mode using my MacBook. I got a new clean phone but the cellular module is still not working. Plus the button "add new esim" disappeared either. I tried using other SIM cards of different providers, tried swapping region and nothing helped. Looks like upgrading from iOS 16 straight to iOS 18.6.2 just killed the modem. I don't believe in such coincidences... Should I look at this as an impetus for getting a new iPhone?.. I don't know. I brought it to the repair shop and now waiting for the verdict... Why is everything like that????

Apple doesn't supply cellular service.

You pay your phone carrier a monthly fee to use cellular data.

What did your phone carrier say when you reported the issue to them?

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