iPhone 18 Pro Max owners spent two weeks seeing SOS on their status bar instead of actual AT&T bars.
AT&T broke its silence today with a statement confirming the issue, though its fix doesn’t seem to be working so far.
What is actually going wrong?
Affected phones lose AT&T connectivity for calls, texts and data, either on and off or constantly, putting the phone into SOS mode.
Reports of the issue go back to September 25, 2026, one week after launch. Many users have also described it via Reddit and Apple support forums.
Here’s the detail that stood out to me: the US iPhone 18 Pro Max is the only new iPhone that uses a Qualcomm modem. The smaller Pro and the iPhone Duo run Apple’s own C2 chip everywhere else. Neither AT&T nor Apple has confirmed this.
Does AT&T’s fix work?
AT&T is asking customers to update to iOS 27.0.1 immediately. The carrier sends people instant messages. However, Apple’s release notes only mention Face ID and camera fixes; they say nothing about cellular problems.
Unfortunately, early reports suggest that the update won’t fix the problem for people who are facing it. Some customers say that their warranty replacement requests were immediately denied. An alleged internal AT&T email says the guidance is really about limiting future impact rather than solving anything today.
If you bought your Pro Max on launch day, today is also your last chance to return it under Apple’s standard 14-day window. If you are facing the problem, you may want to go to the store now.
For those keeping up, AT&T first publicly acknowledged the issue on Oct. 1, a week after reports began piling up online.