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This change would be absolutely fine to me if it were communicated to the user in any way whatsoever. The fact that I can upgrade and have no idea the behaviou

This change would be absolutely fine to me if it were communicated to the user in any way whatsoever. The fact that I can upgrade and have no idea the behaviour unless I happen to read an EFF blogpost in the few hours it appears on HN isn't acceptable. Note how they even use privacy as one of the main (at least, in my opinion) selling point for Apple devices[0] ("Every Apple product is designed from the ground up to protect that information."). [0] https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/

MBCook 9y ago
It IS communicated. If you just pull up control center and tap the button is says “Disconnected from ‘WiFiNetwork’”. If you expand the panel with 3D Touch or a long press under the WiFi icon it either says WiFiName or Not Connected. On the other hand the cellular radio says Off if you toggle it. This isn’t completely hidden. The information is there. And I agree with the other posters that this is a far better setting considering how many people have run up ridiculous cellular bills because of bad Wi-Fi and forgetting about the setting. At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- developer2 9y ago
  >> this is a far better setting considering how many people have run up ridiculous cellular bills because of bad Wi-Fi and forgetting about the setting >> I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting This exactly matches my own opinion. Nearly every single user has no legitimate reason to need to turn off the Wifi adapter (short of Airplane mode). Those who need this functionality (such as dev testing an app whereby Wifi is not available) will know how to fully disable it. The only real argument I'm hearing is this overly sensational concern about privacy. The counterarguments are stretching so far to find any reason to complain about the product, that these are either Android users trying to drum up drama, or coming from legitimate wearers of tinfoil hats. I'm a professional software developer. I'm intricately aware of the tracking potential from walking around with Wifi enabled. It just DOESN'T MATTER. You're only blocking stores from gathering analytics, if that. Your phone provider (and therefore the government) can already track you by cell towers. If you're the type of person who is so concerned with tracking of your Wifi adapter, you're not worrying about the right things. You need to disable Wifi, Cell network, and bluetooth - and then trust that there's nothing else built in to track you. Anything less means you're not serious about your privacy. Such people should probably not even own a cell phone to begin with.
- firebolt327 9y ago
  This is not communicated and is completely bogus, do you expect users to "expand" the panel and read carefully the small text under which says "Not connected" and map it to, "hey this is me Apple, royally screwing with you, even though you wanted to turn off Wifi, and you just did that, I won't turn it off, I am gonna lie to you and keep eating your battery till your phone die" That's exactly what happened to me when I was desperately trying to save battery and turn off services.
  - cdmoyer 9y ago
    You don't have to expand the panel or 3d touch or anything. https://m.imgur.com/SSeZQUC https://m.imgur.com/SSeZQUC I'll admit that this behavior is what I want 99% of the time, so it also doesn't bother me.
    - Too 9y ago
      Ehhhhh, so now "disconnected from ssid" + gray wifi-button means "wifi temporarily turned off"? That is not clearly communicated. At all. I do think the new behavior is better for me as a user 99% of the time, but at the same time i also want to know what is happening and how to override it. Silent mode on android shows how to do it correctly, there you get a popup when activating it asking for how long you want it to be silent. It has a few presets so you just need one extra tap. That is the correct behaviour, if that's to much for an Apple mind to handle, the very least they should do is to inform of the actual state with a more descriptive label.
      - _jn 9y ago
        The communication isn't great, but the "off-ish" setting is visually distinct from the true off setting (the latter showing a struck-through icon.)
  - matwood 9y ago
    While I agree that the UI is a bit subtle in the difference, Apple isn't trying to screw anyone. If you're really trying to save battery life, Airplane mode is the way to go. It totally turns off the wifi and the LTE radio (which is very battery draining). I like this change because when I turn just wifi off it was always because of an acting up network. Now that I don't have to remember to turn it back on is a good thing. My guess is that Apple has a lot of data, and found that this behavior is what most people want.
- Nition 9y ago
  Having WiFi greatly increases the battery drain on my iPhone 5C, so I always turn it off when I'm not using it. I'm not using the phone all the time so there are long periods where it doesn't need to be on, but I still want to receive messages etc (and hence can't use Airplane mode). Edit: I originally said that having wifi on "at least doubles" the power drain on my phone but since I haven't actually taken hard stats on that, I'll just say "greatly increases."
  - notfcctool 9y ago
    These kind of bullshit statements are exactly why iOS and Android SHOULD make it difficult for users to do stupid thing. placebo. effect. Turning off your wifi may give you a few extra minutes. It doesn’t double your goddamn battery life you stupid fucking liar. You probably think homeopathic treatments work too.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    The WiFi radio uses less power than the LTE one, so if you’re in range of WiFi you save battery by leaving it on.
    - Nition 9y ago
      I don't have a data plan so I always have mobile data off.
      - jwong_ 9y ago
        That doesn't turn off your LTE radio though...
        Nition 9y ago
        But djrogers was saying that if I had WiFi on it'd save power because LTE would be off. Surely they only mean the data component? I thought the basic mobile connection was active all the time (unless there was no signal). Are you saying if I turn WiFi on, and I receive an SMS (not through iMessage) or a phone call, it's actually coming through WiFi and the mobile connection is totally off? Surely not.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  I have a phone that is 3D Touch capable and I never use 3D Touch at all. In fact I mostly avoid using it; it's Those Useless Options That Sometimes Pop Up If I Press Too hard On A Thing. It's on par with OSX's "some menu items change if you hold down alt while they're open" behavior. Aggressively obscured.
  - nkristoffersen 9y ago
    You're missing out. 3D Touch is pretty powerful and provides access to more than "Useless Options" now.
    - robotresearcher 9y ago
      It still bugs me as very undiscoverable. I don’t want to press things I don’t intend to toggle just to see whats underneath them. Maybe I’ll get used to it but right now I’m old man grumpy.
      - LoSboccacc 9y ago
        sometimes an app shows a popup, sometimes you show the delete icon for all app. wonderful interface.
        futurix 9y ago
        It always shows a pop-up.
        LoSboccacc 9y ago
        *depending on how hard/lightly you press you get a different interaction. nice uh? and you have to remember which is which or try both
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - 9y ago
- UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
  I didn't know that panel expanded because Apple didn't communicate that fact either... But I just tried it with long press and still don't see what I am meant to be reading in the pop-out. Can you take a screenshot of where this is explained?
- CDRdude 9y ago
  >At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting. I ran into a use case for turning off wifi the other day. My ISP was having problems and the wifi network could not reach the internet. Turning off wifi saved me the trouble of forgetting my wifi network, and then looking up / typing in the password when I rejoined.
  - randallsquared 9y ago
    This happened to me the other day as well. I’m using an 8 Plus, and it worked exactly as I would hope, too.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    The current behavior would do the same thing for you. You didn’t have to turn WiFi off, you just needed to do on next from the flaky WiFi.
- prawn 9y ago
  "At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi." I do it all the time when my home wi-fi is slow and I want to use 4G to quickly access something. My home internet is crap; my phone 4G is fast but with a low bandwidth cap.
  - comex 9y ago
    That use case is satisfied by the iOS 11 toggle, which disconnects from the current network and disables connecting to new networks for the next few hours.
- ajkblue 9y ago
  It seems to be pretty clearly communicated to me when disconnecting... https://imgur.com/oh7diHn https://imgur.com/oh7diHn
  - jackvalentine 9y ago
    That looks to me like it is communicating that the network was disconnected as a result of turning off the wifi. This is backed up by people's previous experiences with the toggle, which did actually turn off the wifi.
- addicted 9y ago
  So all these years when Apple showed basically the same visual cues triggered by the same action they were miscommunications to us? You can’t have it both ways. Apple either miscommunicated this ever since Control center was added till today or they are miscommunication pang today. I would lean in the direction of miscommunicating today because Apple has spent years teaching its customers that this behavior means X and now it’s been changed to Y.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    I believe when they changed the behaviour from turning off WiFi to disconnecting from WiFi, they added the text "Disconnected from networkname". But I don't entirely disagree they should communicate the change better
    - josteink 9y ago
      That only tells me I'm no longer connected to the wifi-network I used to be. And that's the expected outcome of me turning off wifi. Something I deliberately tried to do through clicking the on/off toggle. I agree with parent poster: Either apple has been miscommunication the whole time, or they are miscommunication now. You can't have it both ways.
- cassowary 9y ago
  A hidden feature isn't communicated. I don't know why features are going to do something weird if I short click vs long click. There's simply no communication. Maybe some shadow (3D) effect on something which you can 3D touch would make a huge difference. (It's probably ugly, but the feature itself is ugly, so you'd expect the UI should reflect that.) A right click menu was considered a hidden feature by Apple in the olden days, but at least you knew there was a right mouse button to click. Nowadays you don't know whether a feature exists or whether you just haven't clicked long enough. I appreciate the feature is a nice one, that the wifi will turn back on sometimes. I've been caught out. But I can't know what hidden features exist and how to distinguish them. Moreover, "Disconnected from WifiNetwork" only communicates what you say it does once you know what the feature does. Until then, you don't know. There's also nothing that says "the network has been disabled until you go home" or whenever it's going to turn back on. Apple used to care about their products being useful to power uses and beginners alike. Now they care about their products being useful to beginners and capable of letting the elite know who they are — the power users who are not amongst the elite know that too. It's really not very nice. I was really happy with it when I first got my iPhone. It was awesome. I'd never used one, and it kept telling me what to do next. If I guessed wrong, it was like "haha, no you've gotta do this instead". But it is not going to be replaced with another iPhone. I just can't stand it any more.
  - kfriede 9y ago
    It's more than a hidden feature though. Pressing the wifi button (where you would normally expect it to turn the radio off) literally brings up a text saying "Disconnected from {SSID}"
    - rebuilder 9y ago
      And if I turned off wifi, I'd expect the device to disconnect from amy networks, so that messaage doesn't really tell me much if I don't already know its significance.
    - function_seven 9y ago
      I'm sure many people would think that message confirms they turned off the WiFi.
- drivingmenuts 9y ago
  > At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Battery life, esp. if the battery is low and you need to ensure you'll be able to use it until you can get to a charger.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  > At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Or anyone who doesn’t want to be tracked by random retailers. I worked for one such company, so I know intimately how it works, including how MAC address randomization doesn’t actually work in the real world at completely obscuring your device.
  - caf 9y ago
    Would you mind sharing the details of how MAC address randomization is being defeated in the real world?
    - pmontra 9y ago
      This is an analysis of the workaround https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomization/ https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomiza...
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      @pmontra already provided you with one good link, let me know if you'd like more info. Happy to share peer reviewed articles as well as what I can from the work I did.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    Does this work even if my device newer connects to the retailer's "free" WiFi?
    - amigoingtodie 9y ago
      As long as the wifi radio is enabled, yes.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      It makes it trivially simple if you did connect, but even if you don’t, just having the Wi-Fi radio on is enough.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  "At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi" To preserve battery. I don't know about iPhones, but on my Android phone, Wi-Fi is certainly the largest battery hog, if I leave Wi-Fi location scanning on.
  - starquake 9y ago
    That's strange. I have used Nexus phones since the first one that came out and I have never experienced any significant battery drain from either wifi or bluetooth. First was always screen, second Android system. Just checked again to make sure. Wifi 0%, Bluetooth 0%
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Mine is usually wifi, then screen. Right now wifi is at 8%, and I used it for maybe 15 minutes this morning, that's it. Motorola Moto X Play, Android 6.0.1, for what it's worth. As far as I know, Marshmallow has a battery drain issue, but Motorola (now Lenovo) does not seem to be interested in updating their software anymore.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      I just wanted to mention that I've done a full factory reset of my phone now, and it seems that wifi is using a lot less battery, even with wifi scanning etc. switched on.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    I would LOVE to see someone run benchmarks about how much battery WiFi and BT use on modern iPhones (when disconnected). I would be amazed if the difference was more than negligable.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      It is absolutely not negligible on my Moto X Play. I get around 1.5 days normally, less than a day if I use wifi and BT.
- Ensorceled 9y ago
  I’m completely flummoxed as to why you believe the phrase “Disconnected from {A WiFi}” communicates the complex idea that it’s only partially and temporarily disabled? This really sounds like members of my dev team trying to explain why their terrible UX is actually quite clever.
- _jal 9y ago
  > At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Define 'normal'. After I educated my (retired, nontechnical) mother about wifi and bluetooth tracking, she started turning them off when she left the house. I think the folks who think this is just peachy are in their own bubble. 'Normal' (by my working definition) people do care about this stuff if they understand it. Thankfully, Apple gets this stuff right-ish more often than not, but in this case, I think they blew it.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Apple must have statistics about this (from people who opt in to it like me). If they made this change I imagine the number of people who actually toggle the radios on and off a lot (manually, not airplane mode) must be very small. I’m sure th know how many people have written them about the ‘I ran up my cellular bill and it’s your fault’ thing too. I know I’ve heard that from people. It’s a change from what it’s been doing for 10 years but I think it makes sense.
    - _jal 9y ago
      You indirectly raise an interesting point - I wonder by how much Apple's feedback stats on these topics are biased. Folks who worry about, say, wifi and bluetooth walk-buy surveillance are going to be much more likely to opt-out of just about anything they can, including usage instrumentation. So of course they'll be underrepresented in statistics generated from that data.
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  I have Verizon unlimited data and I keep wifi turned off always. Decent wifi is hard to find these days but Verizon usually works and is faster, even when they throttle me after my initial 15GB is used up. "Decent" means easy-to-access without jumping through a ton of hoops, being reliable after you jump through those hoops, and being faster than cellular data. Yes, my own wifi at home is decent, but when I'm away from home, I just assume there's no such thing as public wifi and use cellular data. My stress is lower that way.
coldtea 9y ago
>This change would be absolutely fine to me if it were communicated to the user in any way whatsoever. Well, there IS a strike-over in the icon when you fully disable wifi.
- bonzini 9y ago
  As long as you discover how to fully disable WiFi. At the very least, they should have applied 3D Touch to it...
throw2016 9y ago
This is so unlike Apple. If there is a 'state' between on and off it should be visually explicit. No one can reasonably argue otherwise. And since a state between on and off is not intuitive and cannot be imagined out of the blue by end users, the onus is on the implementing party to leave no room for confusion. The current vagueness with the control has no logical explanation.

MBCook 9y ago

It IS communicated. If you just pull up control center and tap the button is says “Disconnected from ‘WiFiNetwork’”. If you expand the panel with 3D Touch or a long press under the WiFi icon it either says WiFiName or Not Connected. On the other hand the cellular radio says Off if you toggle it. This isn’t completely hidden. The information is there. And I agree with the other posters that this is a far better setting considering how many people have run up ridiculous cellular bills because of bad Wi-Fi and forgetting about the setting. At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
developer2 9y ago
>> this is a far better setting considering how many people have run up ridiculous cellular bills because of bad Wi-Fi and forgetting about the setting >> I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting This exactly matches my own opinion. Nearly every single user has no legitimate reason to need to turn off the Wifi adapter (short of Airplane mode). Those who need this functionality (such as dev testing an app whereby Wifi is not available) will know how to fully disable it. The only real argument I'm hearing is this overly sensational concern about privacy. The counterarguments are stretching so far to find any reason to complain about the product, that these are either Android users trying to drum up drama, or coming from legitimate wearers of tinfoil hats. I'm a professional software developer. I'm intricately aware of the tracking potential from walking around with Wifi enabled. It just DOESN'T MATTER. You're only blocking stores from gathering analytics, if that. Your phone provider (and therefore the government) can already track you by cell towers. If you're the type of person who is so concerned with tracking of your Wifi adapter, you're not worrying about the right things. You need to disable Wifi, Cell network, and bluetooth - and then trust that there's nothing else built in to track you. Anything less means you're not serious about your privacy. Such people should probably not even own a cell phone to begin with.
firebolt327 9y ago
This is not communicated and is completely bogus, do you expect users to "expand" the panel and read carefully the small text under which says "Not connected" and map it to, "hey this is me Apple, royally screwing with you, even though you wanted to turn off Wifi, and you just did that, I won't turn it off, I am gonna lie to you and keep eating your battery till your phone die" That's exactly what happened to me when I was desperately trying to save battery and turn off services.
- cdmoyer 9y ago
  You don't have to expand the panel or 3d touch or anything. https://m.imgur.com/SSeZQUC https://m.imgur.com/SSeZQUC I'll admit that this behavior is what I want 99% of the time, so it also doesn't bother me.
  - Too 9y ago
    Ehhhhh, so now "disconnected from ssid" + gray wifi-button means "wifi temporarily turned off"? That is not clearly communicated. At all. I do think the new behavior is better for me as a user 99% of the time, but at the same time i also want to know what is happening and how to override it. Silent mode on android shows how to do it correctly, there you get a popup when activating it asking for how long you want it to be silent. It has a few presets so you just need one extra tap. That is the correct behaviour, if that's to much for an Apple mind to handle, the very least they should do is to inform of the actual state with a more descriptive label.
    - _jn 9y ago
      The communication isn't great, but the "off-ish" setting is visually distinct from the true off setting (the latter showing a struck-through icon.)
- matwood 9y ago
  While I agree that the UI is a bit subtle in the difference, Apple isn't trying to screw anyone. If you're really trying to save battery life, Airplane mode is the way to go. It totally turns off the wifi and the LTE radio (which is very battery draining). I like this change because when I turn just wifi off it was always because of an acting up network. Now that I don't have to remember to turn it back on is a good thing. My guess is that Apple has a lot of data, and found that this behavior is what most people want.
Nition 9y ago
Having WiFi greatly increases the battery drain on my iPhone 5C, so I always turn it off when I'm not using it. I'm not using the phone all the time so there are long periods where it doesn't need to be on, but I still want to receive messages etc (and hence can't use Airplane mode). Edit: I originally said that having wifi on "at least doubles" the power drain on my phone but since I haven't actually taken hard stats on that, I'll just say "greatly increases."
- notfcctool 9y ago
  These kind of bullshit statements are exactly why iOS and Android SHOULD make it difficult for users to do stupid thing. placebo. effect. Turning off your wifi may give you a few extra minutes. It doesn’t double your goddamn battery life you stupid fucking liar. You probably think homeopathic treatments work too.
- djrogers 9y ago
  The WiFi radio uses less power than the LTE one, so if you’re in range of WiFi you save battery by leaving it on.
  - Nition 9y ago
    I don't have a data plan so I always have mobile data off.
    - jwong_ 9y ago
      That doesn't turn off your LTE radio though...
      - Nition 9y ago
        But djrogers was saying that if I had WiFi on it'd save power because LTE would be off. Surely they only mean the data component? I thought the basic mobile connection was active all the time (unless there was no signal). Are you saying if I turn WiFi on, and I receive an SMS (not through iMessage) or a phone call, it's actually coming through WiFi and the mobile connection is totally off? Surely not.
egypturnash 9y ago
I have a phone that is 3D Touch capable and I never use 3D Touch at all. In fact I mostly avoid using it; it's Those Useless Options That Sometimes Pop Up If I Press Too hard On A Thing. It's on par with OSX's "some menu items change if you hold down alt while they're open" behavior. Aggressively obscured.
- nkristoffersen 9y ago
  You're missing out. 3D Touch is pretty powerful and provides access to more than "Useless Options" now.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    It still bugs me as very undiscoverable. I don’t want to press things I don’t intend to toggle just to see whats underneath them. Maybe I’ll get used to it but right now I’m old man grumpy.
    - LoSboccacc 9y ago
      sometimes an app shows a popup, sometimes you show the delete icon for all app. wonderful interface.
      - futurix 9y ago
        It always shows a pop-up.
        LoSboccacc 9y ago
        *depending on how hard/lightly you press you get a different interaction. nice uh? and you have to remember which is which or try both
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - 9y ago
UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
I didn't know that panel expanded because Apple didn't communicate that fact either... But I just tried it with long press and still don't see what I am meant to be reading in the pop-out. Can you take a screenshot of where this is explained?
CDRdude 9y ago
>At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. The only real case would be something like airplane mode which already has its own setting. I ran into a use case for turning off wifi the other day. My ISP was having problems and the wifi network could not reach the internet. Turning off wifi saved me the trouble of forgetting my wifi network, and then looking up / typing in the password when I rejoined.
- randallsquared 9y ago
  This happened to me the other day as well. I’m using an 8 Plus, and it worked exactly as I would hope, too.
- djrogers 9y ago
  The current behavior would do the same thing for you. You didn’t have to turn WiFi off, you just needed to do on next from the flaky WiFi.
prawn 9y ago
"At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi." I do it all the time when my home wi-fi is slow and I want to use 4G to quickly access something. My home internet is crap; my phone 4G is fast but with a low bandwidth cap.
- comex 9y ago
  That use case is satisfied by the iOS 11 toggle, which disconnects from the current network and disables connecting to new networks for the next few hours.
ajkblue 9y ago
It seems to be pretty clearly communicated to me when disconnecting... https://imgur.com/oh7diHn https://imgur.com/oh7diHn
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  That looks to me like it is communicating that the network was disconnected as a result of turning off the wifi. This is backed up by people's previous experiences with the toggle, which did actually turn off the wifi.
addicted 9y ago
So all these years when Apple showed basically the same visual cues triggered by the same action they were miscommunications to us? You can’t have it both ways. Apple either miscommunicated this ever since Control center was added till today or they are miscommunication pang today. I would lean in the direction of miscommunicating today because Apple has spent years teaching its customers that this behavior means X and now it’s been changed to Y.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  I believe when they changed the behaviour from turning off WiFi to disconnecting from WiFi, they added the text "Disconnected from networkname". But I don't entirely disagree they should communicate the change better
  - josteink 9y ago
    That only tells me I'm no longer connected to the wifi-network I used to be. And that's the expected outcome of me turning off wifi. Something I deliberately tried to do through clicking the on/off toggle. I agree with parent poster: Either apple has been miscommunication the whole time, or they are miscommunication now. You can't have it both ways.
cassowary 9y ago
A hidden feature isn't communicated. I don't know why features are going to do something weird if I short click vs long click. There's simply no communication. Maybe some shadow (3D) effect on something which you can 3D touch would make a huge difference. (It's probably ugly, but the feature itself is ugly, so you'd expect the UI should reflect that.) A right click menu was considered a hidden feature by Apple in the olden days, but at least you knew there was a right mouse button to click. Nowadays you don't know whether a feature exists or whether you just haven't clicked long enough. I appreciate the feature is a nice one, that the wifi will turn back on sometimes. I've been caught out. But I can't know what hidden features exist and how to distinguish them. Moreover, "Disconnected from WifiNetwork" only communicates what you say it does once you know what the feature does. Until then, you don't know. There's also nothing that says "the network has been disabled until you go home" or whenever it's going to turn back on. Apple used to care about their products being useful to power uses and beginners alike. Now they care about their products being useful to beginners and capable of letting the elite know who they are — the power users who are not amongst the elite know that too. It's really not very nice. I was really happy with it when I first got my iPhone. It was awesome. I'd never used one, and it kept telling me what to do next. If I guessed wrong, it was like "haha, no you've gotta do this instead". But it is not going to be replaced with another iPhone. I just can't stand it any more.
- kfriede 9y ago
  It's more than a hidden feature though. Pressing the wifi button (where you would normally expect it to turn the radio off) literally brings up a text saying "Disconnected from {SSID}"
  - rebuilder 9y ago
    And if I turned off wifi, I'd expect the device to disconnect from amy networks, so that messaage doesn't really tell me much if I don't already know its significance.
  - function_seven 9y ago
    I'm sure many people would think that message confirms they turned off the WiFi.
drivingmenuts 9y ago
> At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Battery life, esp. if the battery is low and you need to ensure you'll be able to use it until you can get to a charger.
jsjohnst 9y ago
> At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Or anyone who doesn’t want to be tracked by random retailers. I worked for one such company, so I know intimately how it works, including how MAC address randomization doesn’t actually work in the real world at completely obscuring your device.
- caf 9y ago
  Would you mind sharing the details of how MAC address randomization is being defeated in the real world?
  - pmontra 9y ago
    This is an analysis of the workaround https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomization/ https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/10/mac_address_randomiza...
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    @pmontra already provided you with one good link, let me know if you'd like more info. Happy to share peer reviewed articles as well as what I can from the work I did.
- nindalf 9y ago
  Does this work even if my device newer connects to the retailer's "free" WiFi?
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    As long as the wifi radio is enabled, yes.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    It makes it trivially simple if you did connect, but even if you don’t, just having the Wi-Fi radio on is enough.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
"At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi" To preserve battery. I don't know about iPhones, but on my Android phone, Wi-Fi is certainly the largest battery hog, if I leave Wi-Fi location scanning on.
- starquake 9y ago
  That's strange. I have used Nexus phones since the first one that came out and I have never experienced any significant battery drain from either wifi or bluetooth. First was always screen, second Android system. Just checked again to make sure. Wifi 0%, Bluetooth 0%
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    Mine is usually wifi, then screen. Right now wifi is at 8%, and I used it for maybe 15 minutes this morning, that's it. Motorola Moto X Play, Android 6.0.1, for what it's worth. As far as I know, Marshmallow has a battery drain issue, but Motorola (now Lenovo) does not seem to be interested in updating their software anymore.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    I just wanted to mention that I've done a full factory reset of my phone now, and it seems that wifi is using a lot less battery, even with wifi scanning etc. switched on.
- MBCook 9y ago
  I would LOVE to see someone run benchmarks about how much battery WiFi and BT use on modern iPhones (when disconnected). I would be amazed if the difference was more than negligable.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    It is absolutely not negligible on my Moto X Play. I get around 1.5 days normally, less than a day if I use wifi and BT.
Ensorceled 9y ago
I’m completely flummoxed as to why you believe the phrase “Disconnected from {A WiFi}” communicates the complex idea that it’s only partially and temporarily disabled? This really sounds like members of my dev team trying to explain why their terrible UX is actually quite clever.
_jal 9y ago
> At this point I’m not sure there’s a need for normal users to actually turn off Wi-Fi. Define 'normal'. After I educated my (retired, nontechnical) mother about wifi and bluetooth tracking, she started turning them off when she left the house. I think the folks who think this is just peachy are in their own bubble. 'Normal' (by my working definition) people do care about this stuff if they understand it. Thankfully, Apple gets this stuff right-ish more often than not, but in this case, I think they blew it.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Apple must have statistics about this (from people who opt in to it like me). If they made this change I imagine the number of people who actually toggle the radios on and off a lot (manually, not airplane mode) must be very small. I’m sure th know how many people have written them about the ‘I ran up my cellular bill and it’s your fault’ thing too. I know I’ve heard that from people. It’s a change from what it’s been doing for 10 years but I think it makes sense.
  - _jal 9y ago
    You indirectly raise an interesting point - I wonder by how much Apple's feedback stats on these topics are biased. Folks who worry about, say, wifi and bluetooth walk-buy surveillance are going to be much more likely to opt-out of just about anything they can, including usage instrumentation. So of course they'll be underrepresented in statistics generated from that data.
dreamcompiler 9y ago
I have Verizon unlimited data and I keep wifi turned off always. Decent wifi is hard to find these days but Verizon usually works and is faster, even when they throttle me after my initial 15GB is used up. "Decent" means easy-to-access without jumping through a ton of hoops, being reliable after you jump through those hoops, and being faster than cellular data. Yes, my own wifi at home is decent, but when I'm away from home, I just assume there's no such thing as public wifi and use cellular data. My stress is lower that way.

coldtea 9y ago

>This change would be absolutely fine to me if it were communicated to the user in any way whatsoever. Well, there IS a strike-over in the icon when you fully disable wifi.

bonzini 9y ago
As long as you discover how to fully disable WiFi. At the very least, they should have applied 3D Touch to it...

throw2016 9y ago

This is so unlike Apple. If there is a 'state' between on and off it should be visually explicit. No one can reasonably argue otherwise. And since a state between on and off is not intuitive and cannot be imagined out of the blue by end users, the onus is on the implementing party to leave no room for confusion. The current vagueness with the control has no logical explanation.