Apple’s new MacBook Airs may have some Wi-Fi problems, but a fix may soon be available.

With the release of its new MacBook Air, Apple really made a statement when it nearly doubled the battery life on both models. Specifically, the 11-inch MacBook Air enjoys up to nine hours of battery life while the 13-inch MacBook Air enjoys up to 12 hours.

That’s all well and good, but what’s the point of all that battery life if you can’t even hop on the Internet. Indeed, reports that some new MacBook Air owners were having difficulty getting on the web via Wi-Fi began emerging last week.

Gizmodo reported not too long ago:

A couple of thousand disenfranchised Apple customers seem to have descended on the Apple Support Forums, all with problems with their shiny new MacBook Airs. The problems they’re seeing sound eerily similar to those we’re experiencing with our machines: Wi-Fi will initially connect, but after a minute or two the connection will stop working, and a total reboot is needed to be able to connect again. The problem is made worse when the Air is on a desk, quite possibly something to do with the Wi-Fi antenna being (*we think*) in the black plastic strip along the bottom of the screen.

Apple has thankfully acknowledged the issue, and according to a recent post from AppleInsider, the company recently began sending out invitations asking certain users to join the AppleSeed Program, where they will be able to get their hands on a pre-release versions of what may be an impending MacBook Air Wi-Fi update.

People who received the email told AppleInsider that Apple will provide selected customers with a pre-release version of the “MacBook Air WiFi Update 1.0” to install and use on their new machines, asking that they give feedback on any bugs found during the testing process.

While not explicitly stated in the AppleSeed invite, it is thought that the update relates to recent Wi-Fi connectivity issues some customers have experienced with Apple’s implementation of the fairly new 802.11ac wireless standard. 

Oh, the woes of being an early adopter.

Via: networkworld