Apple Acknowledges Personal Hotspot Issues Affecting Some iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 Users - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Acknowledges Personal Hotspot Issues Affecting Some iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 Users

by

In an internal document distributed to Apple Authorized Service Providers this week, obtained by MacRumors, Apple has acknowledged that some iOS 13 or iPadOS 13 users may experience issues with Personal Hotspot.

personal hotspot 1
Apple has told Authorized Service Providers to expect customers who are unable to connect to a Personal Hotspot or experience frequent disconnection from one. Customers may also experience general issues with data performance.

Some users have been reporting problems with Personal Hotspot as far back as iOS 13.1.2.

As a temporary workaround, service providers have been instructed to toggle Personal Hotspot off, and then back on. This suggests that there is likely to be a fix in a future software update, but it is unclear if the issue has been resolved in iOS 13.4, and the latest GM release notes do not mention any Personal Hotspot fixes.

Apple recommends that customers keep their software up to date and said that this is not a hardware issue.

Tag: iOS 13
Related Forum: iOS 13

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Read Full Article • 25 comments
Apple Business hero

Apple Unveils 'Apple Business' All-in-One Platform

Tuesday March 24, 2026 8:53 am PDT by
Apple today announced Apple Business, a new all-in-one platform that unifies device management, productivity tools, and customer outreach features. The service is designed to be a consolidated replacement for several of Apple's existing business-focused offerings, including Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect. It provides organizations with a single...
Read Full Article • 47 comments
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 3, AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4

Tuesday March 24, 2026 12:31 pm PDT by
Apple today released new firmware for the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and the AirPods 4. The firmware has a version number of 8B39, up from 8B34 on the AirPods Pro 3, 8B28 on the AirPods Pro 2, and 8B21 on the AirPods 4. There is no word on what's included in the firmware, but Apple has a support document with limited notes. Most updates are limited to bug fixes and performance...
Read Full Article • 88 comments

Top Rated Comments

Shanghaichica Avatar
Shanghaichica
79 months ago
Been like this for years
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
insomniac86 Avatar
insomniac86
79 months ago
Last week I sat with 160 odd staff and showed them how to hotspot to their work supplied iPhone to test VPN and remote access for working from home due to the pandemic.

iPhone 8 Plus and 11’s are the models we provide to staff.

The personal hotspot failed to function reliably on about 1/3 of the iPhone.

Not good enough Apple.
Improve your QA team. 😀

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Quu Avatar
Quu
79 months ago
I've had to use this a lot recently and it is quite buggy. I've had to turn it off and on many times to get it to show up in my Windows computers list of available WiFi networks and often you can stay connected for a few hours then it just stops working. You're still connected to the phone but no data is moving requiring you to turn the hotspot off and on again.

Quite annoying when you're in the middle of a conference call on your computer or something like that and you disconnect for 30 seconds.

I mean I know this is a mild inconvenience but when you label a phone as Pro and charge over a thousand dollars for it I expect it to just work properly for those of us trying to get work done.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mi7chy Avatar
mi7chy
79 months ago
That's how Apple achieves better battery life at the expense of throttling everything from turning off hotspot, display dimming under use, lower GPS update frequency causing inaccuracies, etc.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chucker23n1 Avatar
chucker23n1
79 months ago
Personally, I'd say it's mostly fine. It does disconnect now and then.

But… the feature is inherently complex (you need two devices, one of them needs to create a Wi-Fi hotspot, etc.). And you know they could have reduced the need for this? By making cellular an option on the new MacBook Air this week.

Instead, they made an ad for the iPad Pro that pokes fun at Mac and Windows laptops typically not having cellular. Ouch?


Ever since Craig Federighi was put in charge of iOS & MacOSX the stability & quality of both have plummeted. There's always a .1 release near immediate after a .0 release that tries to fix bugs in .0 but always adds more. There's persistent crashes, security issues. The list goes on. Scott Forstall needs to be brought back to fix them both.
I don't understand this deification of Scott Forstall. I see little evidence that his org shipped inherently higher-quality code than Craig's.

Now, if we go further back to Bertrand Serlet, maybe? But at the time, Apple had a lot less code in total, so it was also easier to manage.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Naraxus Avatar
Naraxus
79 months ago
Ever since Craig Federighi was put in charge of iOS & MacOSX the stability & quality of both have plummeted. There's always a .1 release near immediate after a .0 release that tries to fix bugs in .0 but always adds more. There's persistent crashes, security issues. The list goes on. Scott Forstall needs to be brought back to fix them both.


Hot spot works fine for me. No issues.
Of course not :rolleyes:will you ever stop making excuses for Apple?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments