The iPhone Wi-Fi Black Hole

Posted on January 21, 2009

Devicescape is all about Wi-Fi, and I’ve been using Wi-Fi on an iPhone ever since we got our first one on June 30, 2007. Over that time, we’ve learnt a lot about the iPhone’s Wi-Fi experience. If your thinking is limited to home networks, Apple’s decision to make the switch to a known Wi-Fi network happen automatically seems pretty smart. You walk into your home (or office, etc), the iPhone switches to your Wi-Fi network and everything is good. But, the iPhone is a mobile device, and one that people tend to have with them all the time (unlike a laptop). Increasingly, those devices are being connected to other Wi-Fi networks, including public hotspots like AT&T’s network in the US Starbucks locations. So now my iPhone knows the AT&T Wi-Fi network as well. And therein lies the problem: every AT&T Wi-Fi becomes a black hole for data access until I log in. Daily Annoyance Every morning I walk from the ferry terminal to my bus stop. In between the two, very conveniently, there is a Starbucks where I stop to buy a coffee and check my email and catch up on my Twitter stream before the bus comes. As I…