Software tower · floor

How to connect to wifi, and why a café is different

At home this is three taps and needs no explaining. The reason the question gets asked so often is the other case — a hotel, an airport, a café — where the phone joins the network and still will not load a page.

How each system says it worked. Apple: “Look for the blue checkmark next to the network name, and the Wi-Fi icon in the upper corner of your screen. This means you’re successfully connected.” Microsoft describes the opposite signal — “the Disconnected icon appears when you’re not connected”. Between them that is the whole confirmation: a mark beside the name and an icon at the edge of the screen. If the network you expect is not listed at all, Microsoft names the control for it: “you can manually start a new Wi-Fi scan by selecting the Refresh network list”.

That is the whole of it for a home or an office network: pick the name, type the password, look for the mark. Apple adds the only sensible advice about a password you do not have — “contact your network administrator” — because there is nothing on the device that can supply it.

One small convenience is worth knowing because it removes the typing entirely. Microsoft: “On Windows devices that have a camera, you can use it to scan a QR code to quickly connect to a Wi-Fi network without needing to manually enter network details.” It adds where these turn up — “in public places like coffee shops” — or on another Windows device.

Which brings us to the case this page exists for.

The distinction in that box is the thing to hold on to. Being connected to the network is not the same as being on the internet. On a captive network the connection succeeds first, and a page then has to appear asking for a name, an email, or a tick on some terms. When nothing loads, the usual assumption — that the connection failed — is the wrong diagnosis.

Apple gives a second route to the same place, for when the login screen does not appear by itself: “tap the More Info button next to the network’s name, then tap Join Network.” That is worth trying before deciding the network is broken.

Those three deserve reading twice, because the consequences differ and the buttons do not announce it. Without Internet keeps you on the network. Other Network takes you off it. And Apple states plainly what happens if you back out at the login page itself: “When you tap Cancel on the login screen, you disassociate the device from the captive Wi-Fi network.”

There is a matching setting for the network you have already used once and want back automatically. Apple: your devices “can remember network and login information so that you can automatically reconnect to that network when you’re in range” — and if that is not happening, tap More Info beside the name and “make sure that Auto-Join is on”.

What this page will not do is tell you which public network is safe to use. That is a different question with a different answer, and it depends on what you do while connected rather than on how you joined. The floor on HTTP and HTTPS is the one that covers it, and the short version is that the protection you have on a shared network comes from the site rather than from the network.

Nor will it help with a network whose password you do not have. Both makers say the same thing in different words: ask whoever runs it. There is no setting on either system that recovers a password you were never given.

The floors below take it three ways: joining, the public case, and what to do when the connection is there and still does not work.

What this tower will not do

It will not tell you a public network is safe. How you joined it says nothing about that, and the protection on a shared network comes from the sites you visit.

It will not recover a password you were not given. Both Apple and Microsoft say to ask whoever runs the network, and no setting substitutes.

And it will not treat “connected” as “working”. On a captive network those are two separate events, and confusing them is the commonest reason this question gets asked twice. What holds instead is simple: the connection steps for iPhone and iPad and for Windows, the blue checkmark and Wi-Fi icon that confirm a connection, the Disconnected icon and the Refresh network list control, the QR code option on Windows devices with a camera, the definition of captive networks and where they are found, the instruction to wait for a login screen, the note that fees might apply, the Join Network route, the Without Internet, Other Network and Cancel options and what each does, the effect of cancelling at the login screen, and the Auto-Join setting are quoted from Apple’s and Microsoft’s support documentation, listed below.