There’s a bit of controversy over at the Apple discussion board over whether Borders free Wi-Fi supports the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Several people have complained that it works with the Mac but not the portable Apple devices. I remember bringing my iPod Touch to a Borders store and having trouble connecting. I wondered if it had something to do with the Wi-Fi access point in the store or with my iPod Touch. Anyone having the same problem?
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Yup–this is exactly what happens to me as well. My iPod Touch can bring up the Terms & Conditions screen but nothing works on it–it’s not possible to agree to the Terms and Conditions. I don’t have this problem anywhere else but Borders.
Same here, and only with Borders. You wait forever to be able to Accept the Terms and Conditions. It seems many minutes pass before the accept button becomes live and can be pushed. By this time the connection is broken probably due to time out.
Has anyone tried to go to Static rather than DHCP?
Same for me. My iPhone 3G gets the log-in screen, but I can’t tap on anything. Friends’ iPod Touches work fine. I also get this at Caribou Coffee, where they use a Wandering Wifi connection. Quite maddening. Clues?
I have the same issues at both Borders near where I live in Maine. If the login screen comes up, nothing will work on it so I can’t agree to the terms.
same here. I get the T’s & C’s but cant get past that screen
Same, I have gotten it to log in, but it takes a LOOOOOOOOOONNNNG time. I mean, 10-30 min, during which you have to keep the screen awake.
I am guessing it is a problem between a script on the login page and Mobile Safari.
My friend’s Android phone logs in perfectly, so it is not a hardware issue.
Discovered work-around for jail-broken iPhone / iPod Touch users.
Problem is indeed with Mobile Safari, solution is to use another browser, in this case, Lynx. This requires some familiarity with mobile terminal.
1. Install Lynx and MobileTerminal from Cydia.
2. Launch MobileTerminal
3. Start Lynx (by typing “lynx” without the quotes)
4. Swipe finger left on login screen until “login” is highlighted
5. Press [Return] on keyboard.
6. Hit [Y] on keyboard to agree to any Cookies borders wants to store.
7. Yay! You are done! Now that you are logged in, exit the terminal app and launch MobileSaferi / whatever, and it should work fine.
I tried 3 different Borders.
Always the same problem.
I can never get past the TERMS screen.
At the end of the day, its their loss, people who flock to free wifi will go elsewhere. The potential is there, boarders will eventually catch on, but maybe it will be too late.
This issue happens at all free WiFi spots including but not limited to FirstWatch, BobEvans, Borders etc. Whenever there is a terms and agreement page. Apple products/software does not connect. This isn’t BORDERS OR any other ones fault but a software glitch on Apples part. Sometimes it will sneak through but mostly not. Apple’s arrogance is becoming just like Microsoft. I hope they don’t follow the same path. Lately many of their products are Buggy for example, mobileme. Let’s hope they don’t screw up. I personally am losing patience.
I am losing my patience with places like Borders that even have login pages. Why are they necessary? Because some idiot in the legal department told them to do it? There are so many other WiFI hotspots WITHOUT login pages and they do just fine. Login screens are so customer unfriendly. You should be targeting your criticism against people like Borders, not at Apple.
Ray, in trying the term/ASCII-browser approach you suggested, I never see a login opportunity…. LYNX provides its help, and collateral links, but I don’t see the familiar CHUI webpage display; do I/we need to point it to the Borders gateway as identified by the general setup tab? Thanks for the insights!
You’ll need to contact your congressman. Liability is on the business when someone uses it for malicious purposes. This is a software glitch that could be fixed. Apple does the same legal jargon everytime you use their product and you agree to it everytime, what rational do you have to ask differently of another company? I agree that it sucks but it doesn’t take away the fact that apple is aware of the glitch and hasn’t fixed it.
Install an app that disables iPhone wifi auto login, like Boingo, which is free. Then Borders wifi will work. It seems slow to login, but it works.
Same problem on android phones. The terms of service page seems to be broken on webkit browsers (both apple safari and Google browser are webkit based). I downloaded the free xscope lite browser for android and that one worked well. I’m typing this from a Droid as we speak on borders wifi.
What good is “free” wifi from Borders… it doesn’t work at the 4 Border’s I’ve tried.
Starbucks works.
McDonalds works.
Coney Island works.
Barnes and Nobel works.
Avoid Borders.
Borders does not provide the WiFi, Verizon provides the WiFi. This is a problem with safari. No other devices have this problem only Apple’s iPod and iPhone.
Just because it doesn’t work on your iPhone doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all. I see plenty of people using the WiFi when I’m at Borders.
i have the same problem at mcdonalds which are everywhere, and this sucks because i like to use Skype but it is a no go the wifi signal just goes blank when i try to connect and agree tot eh terms and conditions and my touch tells me that the ipod is not connected to the internet even though i am. it is very annoying
Not sure this will work for everyone, but i found a way to click on the “Accept Terms and Condition”.
when you see the log on screen, you probably cannot click on anything, accept the “Read Terms and Condition”, click that and scroll down and click “Back” and then right after that you can click on the “Accept Terms ….” graphic.
I did that many time and seems to work. Hope this might work for you guys.
The boingo app fixed it! Just install the free boingo app from the apple app store and the automatic popup no longer happens after connecting to a public wifi hotspot. When you bring up regular safari you then get the login or T&C page. Full safari (as opposed to the cut-down instance that automatically pops up after wifi connect) seems to handle everything much better. Thanks for the tip! Note: just install the boingo app. You don’t have to actually launch it.
Yes. Just installing Boingo solved the issue for me too.. Thanks for the tip.
I went in mc donalds yesterday and tried connecting with their WiFi, but it had connected, I had full connection but when I went onto Internet only apps like Facebook, it was like I wasn’t connected at all, but up the top I had full connection:/