iPhone/iPad WiFi Scanning

[RogerSC]

Don't know when Apple added this, but you can now scan WiFi networks using your iPhone. Previously you had to have Android and use "WiFi Analyzer". Now the free Apple "Airport Utility" app from the app store does this in a useful, although non-graphical, way.

Just get the Airport Utility, and go into its settings. Turn on Wifi Scan there, and you'll find "WiFi Scan" in the upper righthand corner of the initial Airport Utility screen. Just ignore "No Airport Base Station found" message, and tap the blue "WiFi Scan" words. The next screen has a scale on it, which I've ignored. Just tap "Scan" in the upper righthand corner of this screen, and you will see a list of WiFi networks with their channel and RSSI values appear shortly. You can just let this run, and hit "Stop" in the upper righthand corner when you're done.

While it doesn't show things graphically, the WiFi networks that it can see are ranked in terms of signal strength, strongest on the top. I don't know if this was added because Steve Jobs is no longer around to approve/disapprove of every detail that goes into Apple apps, or they finally realized that this is useful to Apple mobile device owners.

Enjoy.

 

[sfx2000]

Nice tip... it's fairly recent. Don't forget to turn it off (Stop in Airport Utility) or it will suck down the battery.

There used to be a number of WiFi scanners in the AppStore, but Apple pulled them as they didn't use "public" frameworks - this goes with any App in the store...

If you jailbreak, many of those apps are now in Cydia...

 

[RogerSC]

Yes, you can get an Android "WiFi Analyzer" equivalent for the iPhone in the Cydia store...if you want to jailbreak your iPhone, as you say.

I was happy to find this, very useful for me. I just switched back from Android to iPhone with the iPhone 6, after bypassing the iPhone 5. After my iPhone 4, I got a Samsung Galaxy S3, a nice phone, but I got tired of Android *smile*. I guess I don't have a great attention span.

Actually, one of the reasons that I switched back to the iPhone was the idle battery usage is a bunch lower with the iPhone than the Android phone. Although that seemed to be getting better with KitKat, I just couldn't get the idle battery usage down enough to be happy with Android. I don't care a lot about how much battery power a phone uses when not idle, within reason, but I don't want to have to charge my phone because it's using too much battery when I'm not using it. And I had to do a lot to Android to get that idle battery usage down, and never got it to be as low as I was comfortable with.

While iOS 8 has had a lot more problems than I'd like, iOS is more designed as a mobile OS, rather than Android, which seems more like a down-sized general purpose OS. Although, as I said, Android seems to be improving as a mobile OS. Still remains to be seen how Lollipop is in that area, but it looks like it has some really nice features *smile*.

 

[sfx2000]

Android is getting better... Samsung has nice HW, but TouchWiz and all the Samsung replacements for the standard google Android apps makes it a different, and for some, less satisfying experience.

Moto with the G is a very close to standard Android UI, and in many ways, a better handset. Moto X takes it up market...

I use both Android and iOS - have to support both, so need to be up to speed

I agree though - iOS tends to be a more focused experience, and they have advantage in that the HW/SW is very tightly integrated.

 

[azazel1024]

Wow, thanks! Nice find. I generally just use my T100 tablet for wifi siting with my house/property, but it would be nice to see what my phone is actually reporting too.

 

[RogerSC]

Yep, I have this on both my iPhone and iPad, very useful for me.