iPad owners raise Wi-Fi issues

As Apple iPad owners around the United States play with their new machines, some are complaining about the Wi-Fi connectivity of the devices. An online Apple support page has received dozens of messages from iPad owners about erratic Wi-Fi service and so have other sites dedicated to Apple products such as MacRumors.com.

The extent of the problem was not immediately clear as many owners of Apple's new touchscreen tablet computer, which went on sale in the United States on Saturday, reported that their Wi-Fi reception was just fine.

"Wi-Fi reception seems weak with slow downloads," a message from "Dr. JB" said on the Apple support page devoted to comments about "Weak WiFi." "Anyone else having Wi-Fi issues?"

"Yes, I'm having the same issues," replied "Tangerine23."

"Same issue. Weak signal on the iPad, same spot iPhone works great. Very frustrating," said "prb44t."

"My signal keeps fluctuating from strong to weak, while my MacBookand iPhone show a consistent signal at the same location," said "Andrew79."

An iPad owner named Andy Murdock, however, said he was "not having any problems, wi-fi strength full power all over my house" and others also said they were getting a consistently strong signal.

Some iPad owners speculated the problem may be related to the placement of the Wi-Fi antenna on the device while others said it could be a software bug.

Apple has a help page on Wi-Fi at support.apple.com called "Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections."

The support page provides advice for iPad users who are unable to locate a Wi-Fi network, access the Internet or report weak or low Wi-Fi signal strength.

On Monday, Apple posted a notification stating that "under certain conditions, iPad may not automatically rejoin a known Wi-Fi network after restart or waking from sleep" and provided a fix for the issue.

The California-based company said Monday it sold more than 300,000 iPads in the United States on its first day of availability on Saturday.

The model that went on sale Saturday features Wi-Fi wireless connectivity, while a model offering both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular connectivity will be released in late April.