Since late last year, some iPhone owners have complained of an annoying hotspot bug present in iOS 13 that causes hotspot connections to repeatedly drop after short periods of time. Thankfully, a fix may finally be on the way.
The news comes from MacRumors, which has seen an internal document passed on from Apple to its Authorized Service Providers saying that the company is aware of the issue, and that technicians should expect inquiries from customers who are having trouble using the hotspot feature on their iPhones.
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Apple goes onto confirm that the problem is not hardware related, and advise that technicians simply tell their clients to toggle the hotspot feature on and off if they experience a dropped connection.
For what it's worth, iOS 13.4 is slated for release today — March 24. However, MacRumors reports that there's no indication the spotty hotspot connection bug has been dealt with in the upcoming release, so users may have to hold on a little while longer before the company issues a solution.
That said, at least this shows that Apple's aware there is a problem to fix. Reports of hotspot headaches began emerging last fall, some weeks after iOS 13's release. Apple's Support Community is littered with tales of devices that either refuse to connect to their iPhone, take repeated attempts or drop a connection after several minutes.
For some users, the problem presents itself when using their MacBook in tandem with their iPhone. Others prefer to use their iPhone as an in-car hotspot for their infotainment system or other devices, and have noted issues while driving. People rely on hotspots for internet connectivity in all kinds of circumstances of course, and during these extremely desperate times, maintaining that connection with the world is more important now than ever.
For now, it seems Apple's best advice is to just keep flipping that switch over and over again as needed. It's hardly a solution — in fact, your connection may not even resume every time you do it — though the mere recommendation proves the bug is on Apple's docket to be alleviated in a future iOS release.
