One of the big new features in the iPhone 16 range is the move from WiFi 6E to WiFi 7, which allows for better speeds and lower latency for games. While this is good news for those who have the Freebox Ultra or a WiFi 7 compatible router, there is a huge disappointment: Apple has limited the performance of the WiFi chip in the iPhone 16, which generates performance largely lower than what competing smartphones offer which are also WiFi 7 compatible.
WiFi 7 restricted on iPhone 16
At the beginning of the year, Samsung released its new Galaxy S24 with WiFi 7 compatibility, numerous speed tests were running on social networks with impressive download speeds around 3.8 Gbit/s. At the editorial office, we were able to test the Galaxy S24 Ultra on a Freebox Ultra in WiFi 7 and we managed (successfully) to reach a speed of 4.2 Gbit/s in the same room as the Freebox, a good speed. better than WiFi 6E with our iPhone 15 Pro Max at the time.
When the iPhone 16s were released, we very quickly reproduced the same speed test on our Freebox Ultra, we said to ourselves “now that the new iPhones are compatible with WiFi 7, we should have performance identical to that we saw at Samsung”. However, this is not the case at all…
According to a recent media report The Digitalsthe WiFi 7 offered on the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max is not at all the same as on competing Android smartphones. As we were able to observe in the editorial office, with our iPhone 16 Pro Max, we hardly exceed 1.7 Gbit/s and it is exactly the same story with our colleague.
Of course, 1.7 Gbps in WiFi is absolutely huge, it’s better than WiFi 5, WiFi 6, but there is no big difference compared to WiFi 6E. The question we can then ask ourselves is “why do Android smartphone users have much higher speeds in WiFi 7 and iPhone 16 owners have speeds closer to WiFi 6E even though they also have a compatible WiFi chip?”.
There is an explanation
The explanation can be found directly in the management of the WiFi chip parameters. Apple has included a WiFi 7 chip in the new iPhones, we reassure you there is no scam. However, the company has applied a restriction which severely limits the performance of this chip when it connects to a WiFi 7 compatible router.
If we take the example of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, it benefits from the bandwidth of 320 MHz, which is one of the advantages of WiFi 7, it is precisely this bandwidth which allows speeds which have nothing to envy of an Ethernet cable connection. However, on the iPhone 16, we find a limitation at 160 MHz, this restriction causes a complete drop in download speed, we are even talking about a loss of speed of 50%.
Apple does not hide this information, if we look at the support page dedicated to WiFiwe see that the company limits the bandwidth to 160 MHz, the iPhone 16s are therefore restricted in WiFi performance and it is official.
Why a restriction?
Several reasons can explain this. The first could be linked to the management of energy consumption, by reducing the bandwidth to 160 MHz, Apple limits the use of hardware resources, which makes it possible to extend the autonomy of the iPhone, a crucial criterion for the user experience.
This limitation could also be motivated by the desire to ensure better connection stability in congested environments where 320 MHz channels could encounter more interference.
Apple has not provided official explanations on the restriction to 160 MHz, however, it cannot be denied that it generates a gigantic frustration of having the compatible iPhone, the compatible router, but not being able to take full advantage of it . We would almost go so far as to say that it is borderline legal to sell WiFi 7 compatible iPhone 16s and prevent the user from benefiting from them. Perhaps the least we could do would be to add a setting in iOS 18 to allow the user to remove this limitation!
Note: iPhoneSoft uses affiliate links whenever possible. When you click on a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission, which helps us maintain this site and at no extra cost to you.
