There is a wifi in my home (run by landlord – I have no control), which is called "Default" and has no encryption enabled.
I can manually connect to the network from my two iPhones – but whenever an iPhone loses connection, it does not automatically connect again when in range.
What can cause the phone to not automatically connect to a know access point?
Both my computers connect and reconnect with no issues.
I have not seen this behavior with these phones with any other wifi access-points.
I have tried resetting the network settings to factory defaults on one phone, but it did not make a difference.
Both iPhones are up to date with latest iOS updates (5.1) and are not jailbroken or anything out of the ordinary.
Best Answer
It's a security feature.
iPhones don't connect to routers that have factory default SSIDs, such as default, linksys, dlink, etc... This protects from the following: as you traverse the world, you will certainly pass by locations that are not customized and therefore have a default SSID with no password. Your iPhone would connect to these networks without you knowing. This is fine and all, unless someone is fishing for people to connect to their network so that they can read the traffic.
Ultimately, connecting to an unknown network is risky.