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Geckotek

macrumors G3
Jul 22, 2008
8,768
308
NYC
So I should turn it off and use 3G in my house, where it's slower and I'd be unable to access apps, while burning through the limited data tariffs that are all that exist in the UK. Super.

How I wish the vote down button still existed.

If you have to turn it off "literally every hour of every day"....yep.
 

DDustiNN

macrumors 68020
Jan 27, 2011
2,485
1,371
Why do people worry about turning wi-fi and bluetooth on and off? This isn't Android, and even if it were, that OS is much more efficient now than it was in its infancy.

Having wi-fi on does not affect your battery life as dramatically as you may think. Probably not even as much as you spend actually worrying about switching it on and off.

Same goes for GPS.

Just leave it on. If your phone needs to use it, it will, and the icon will display on your task bar. If not, it won't be doing anything. Not even draining your battery.

3G is way more battery-intensive than wi-fi, especially if your signal is weak.

Relax, guys. The days of task-killers, GPS toggles, and wi-fi toggles are behind us. Don't worry about it, and you'll realize everything is fine :cool:

Even if you're in a wi-fi zone that is giving you a weak signal and you'd rather use 3G, just go into your settings and "forget" that network. No need to disable wi-fi completely.
 

VTECaddict

macrumors 6502
Sep 15, 2008
392
61
Even if you're in a wi-fi zone that is giving you a weak signal and you'd rather use 3G, just go into your settings and "forget" that network. No need to disable wi-fi completely.

If you're in an area with poor radio reception, just take out your screw driver and remove your radio. No need for a power button. :rolleyes:
 

Pulsedriver81

macrumors member
Sep 23, 2011
54
0
Sweden
Wifi toggle

I really can´t believe some people here. I for one would appreciate a quick toggle for wifi. I too constantly have to toggle wifi on/off at work because of weak signal on some places. I hear I am not the only one with a "need" for a quick toggle.

You people aginst it...come on! Are you really that thickheaded that you believe everything Apple does is always the best solution?

There are obviosly alot of people in demand of such a quick toggle, can you please explain to me what the "downsides" are if such a solution were to be implemented? You can´t argue with people that feel the need for it and say "you don´t need it". Explain to me why? Just because you don´t need it, doesn´t meen I don´t need it.

Yes, the normal user don´t constantly toggle wifi on/off (I´m not sure, but I believe so). Ever think that the reason could be that the normal user don´t know any better, they just adapt to what is.

I´ll give you an example:
My mother was on a visit here recently. We went to town together for a day. Constantly she got pop ups about networks being available and she constantly pressed the pop up away. I told her..."You know you can switch that off, right?" And she said: How? I showed her and later on I asked her if it would be easier with a quick toggle in NC and she agreed to that it would be easier. Many days later she already forgot how to toggle wifi on/off but rememberd the "need" for a toggle in NC.

She is not the most technical person in the world, but I actually feel that it is more userfriendly to have a quick toggle in NC. My point is that normal users adapt to technology while power users want the technology to adapt to them.

What Apple is trying to do is to create a technology that adapts to the user without the influence of the user. It´s a nice goal, but in reality we aren´t there yet. So until then...They should offer a quick toggle for it.
 

Zcott

macrumors 68020
Oct 18, 2009
2,307
47
Belfast, Ireland
This whole thread ties into another thread about geofencing. What was proposed in that thread was an idea to marry system settings to location, and in the case of this thread, a 'disable wifi when I leave home' setting would be perfect.

Most of us just leave wifi on, though.
 

danielceleste

macrumors regular
Jun 16, 2012
210
6
It would require an *another* swipe to the left and that's not very intuitive.

No it wouldn't. When I was jail broken, there was a tweak to enable the brightness slider in the switcher and it conveniently placed it underneath the volume slider. Looked completely polished, as if apple intended it to be there
 

hpturbine

macrumors newbie
May 5, 2013
1
0
Icons?

I just switched from a android to iphone because of a broken screen. I noticed right away home many more steps are involved for everything in the iphone. I used airplane mode daily on my andriod device. I could easily switch to airplane mode and then turn back on the wifi and gps (yes while still in airplane mode). I also could turn off mobile data, adjust screen brightness and bluetooth, with everthing in a one custumizable toolbar that didnt take up much space on the screen, wanst even a app, those basic toolbar widgets come installed on the android phones. I turned on and off things for various reasons while traveling, especially overseas. I will be switching back to android once I fix my screen, iphones have too many steps and way to restricted for apps. I also noticed I cant use the iphone as a external drive, so I have to pack a laptop or flash drive with me to carry my documents and pictures I can move on and off the device when out of internet range. The iphone doesnt seem like a smartphone at all, just a entertainment device.
 

15jev

macrumors newbie
May 13, 2013
1
0
It happens a lot!

And exactly how often does that far-fetched situation happen to you? I can tell you it does happen to me....about once every other month. Not exactly usage that requires a shortcut.

Not saying it wouldn't be helpful, but there are far more useful things Apple should be worried about implementing first.


I can tell you, it happens to me ALL the time. Every time I am in town, and it picks up a wifi hotspot I have used in say a coffee shop as I walk past, it connects, but in order to use it, you have to go on safari and log into their hotspot. So im walking along outside, surfing the web or streaming music, and then it connects to a hotspot while in my pocket, and i lose internet unless i log onto their hotspot. I therefore have to turn wifi off, but as soon as I am at work or home, i want to turn it back on.
 

Armen

macrumors 604
Apr 30, 2013
7,405
2,274
Los Angeles
This is my theory.

In an ideal world, Apple wouldn't have settings for such tasks.

They don't want people thinking about turning WiFi, 3G... etc on or off to manage battery or other things.

Ideally the software would manage these in a more effective way.

For example, when away from Wifi it puts any Wifi hardware into a low power 'sleep' state.

I think by making these settings much more visable, it opens them up to be 'played' with more often by more people, when in actual fact Apple doesn't want people worrying about such things.

I think the new "Use 3G when WiFi is weak" setting is a good indicator of this.

Maybe i'm conmpletely wrong, and in IOS7 we'll see toggles... but it's just my theory.

Totally agree with you. You shouldn't need to go into Wifi settings unless you intend on connecting to a new wifi network or insist on using 3G/LTE for some reason ( at work our wifi sometimes sucks so I turn it off and use LTE for example)
 
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