Despite that, it seems that Apple has changed the way WiFi is handled, especially in regard to hotspots that use authentication/acknowledgment pages that you need to open a browser for.
At my work, we have this guest WiFi network that was a real pain to use with iDevices. After you log in initially and after a certain period of inactivity, it forces you to open a web browser and go through acknowledgment page before you can actually send/receive any data. While this is fine for web browsing, it was a pain with everything else on iDevices that needed to use data. The part that made it painful was the fact that when your session timed out, it would not flat out drop you from its network. As long as your device is within WAP's range, it would retain a valid IP, but prior to iOS 6 it would not realize that despite that the connection was useless. This would result in apps stuck in an endless loop trying to connect, missed notifications, etc.
iOS 6 seems to be a bit smarter about this, even with this option removed from GM. Still not perfect, but much better then before nevertheless. Now, whenever I bring an app that needs Internet access and re-acknowledgment is required, the window pops up on top of the app with Done/Cancel buttons on top. If you acknowledge the page and click Done, it's back to the app and it is pulling data using WiFi. If you tap Cancel, WiFi icon disappears and the app pulls the data using cell network.
Again, while this is not perfect and there's still room for improvement, the way it is handled in iOS 6 is much better compared to that before it.
