Apple Initiates Replacement Program for 3rd Generation Apple TVs With Wi-Fi Connectivity Issues

Apple has notified its retail stores, authorized resellers, and AppleCare employees about WiFi issues being experienced by a small portion of its third generation Apple TVs, reports 9to5Mac. The units are having issues locating and joining WiFi networks and maintaining a connection.

Apple has determined that a very small number of Apple TV (3rd generation) products might experience one of these Wi-Fi related connectivity issues:

Cannot locate network

Unable to join network

Dropped or intermittent connection.

Apple technicians are authorized to replace affected products for two years from the original date of purchase at no charge to the customer after verifying that the devices are running software version 5.2.1 and that there are no third party interference issues.

The Apple TVs experiencing connectivity problems feature the following serial numbers:

The third generation Apple TV, which features support for 1080p video, was first released in March of last year. It was later tweaked in late January to include a smaller A5 chip.

Update: According to several readers, Apple has acknowledged that it initially erred in referring to the character pairs appearing the third and fourth positions of the serial number. The listed pairs would actually occur in the fourth and fifth positions.