Now you're being cute. I was directly answering someone's doubt with a factual statement.
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Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit for New Wi-Fi Assist Feature
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Now you're being cute. I was directly answering someone's doubt with a factual statement.
Nope. There is no way to enable Location Services involuntarily, period. It doesn't matter what sub-features of Location Services are automatically on if all services are OFF by default overall. There is one master switch for all location services. That master switch is off unless it's turned on. Under it, there's a blurb that says it will enable services for cell towers and hotspots so the user knows. If you don't wish for those, you can enable the services, go to the "System Services" option that pops up immediately after, and turn off all those options. There's no need to seek information on your own because it's right there. That way, you can never be surprised that anything has been happening without your awareness, which is not the case for WiFi Assist. Fact. This is just the truth.
The key is that Location Services ARE OFF BY DEFAULT. WiFi ASSIST IS ON BY DEFAULT AND USERS MUST SEEK INFORMATION ON THEIR OWN and OPT-OUT.
This is the kind of stuff I'd expect Microsoft to do. I can only imagine what the MacRumors response would be if Windows 10 did the exact same thing.
You are confusing my opinion, and my rationale for my opinion, with "just accept it, they're wrong". I didn't write that, and I wouldn't.
Actually, on this point -- we don't disagree at all. I think it should have been implemented that way, and I think it should be fixed as soon as possible. To that end, everyone concerned with it should be contacting Apple and filing a bug report, a forum post, or a feature request. And if you really want to contribute, sign up as a beta tester and take the opportunity to stop something like this before it is "out in the wild".
Where we part ways is: the legal system is not the appropriate way to do this. It's a burden on our courts, which are already overloaded and need to concentrate on serious cases where people have been injured or defrauded.
This isn't one of those cases. It's like killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer: it may be satisfying, but ultimately you are just going to inflict a disproportionate amount of damage on whatever the mosquito is resting.
$5M may not seem like much for Apple. But, that's $5M they could have spent on something more productive, like hire another 20 experienced engineers for a year. It would make their products better, benefiting the users. And it would certainly make life better for those engineers and their families.
I'll take that over buying another plane or boat for an attorney, although I have to admit the people building the plane or boat might disagree.
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Are you trying to make a point?
I've actually read this in the past, albeit not exhaustively. I've also read the EULA.
I haven't read the Acknowledgements, though. Most of them are some variant of a open source license.
Other people have not shown that their higher usage was due to wifi assist. Simply that they had higher usage. Similar reports have existed after updating to some previous iOS versions that didn't have wifi assist. Simply saying some people have higher usage doesn't mean it's because of wifi assist without something that shows that that is in fact what's behind it. I'm not sure why such rational line of thinking is somehow continuously being ignored and twisted into something else.
As I said it before, go try it on your iPhone and report back by the end of the two sessions.
I haven't seen any higher data usage than before while having wifi assist enabled. And my data usage remained the same as before after I disabled it.
Have you used a month period with it and another month without it? Let's try that. We'll test you out and see the result. After a month period (without knowing of wifi assistant on), i know i got high usage. Since I don't know how you use yours....put it a month trial on it.
NO matter what Apple has not right tell someone when and where they should turn on WIFI or Data service. Apple is always trying to dictate people actions when it comes to their products. For example is an Application is over a hundred megs and will not download until WIFI is turned on . It should be up to the customer and not Almighty Apple.
It is a sign of how popular Apple products are, and how engaged in them we all are that such a simple feature can evoke such a strong reaction from so many people.
Personally I love the feature. I only had a 1GB per month cap the whole way through the beta and never got near an overage. I love that if i'm on my phone doing something as I leave home the switch to LTE from my wifi seems to be much more seamless.
Basically I look at this feature as automating and simplifying something that every single smartphone user of any brand has done at least once and probably 100 times. Turning off wifi when the signal sucks so that they can do what they want to do. However, this feature makes that step automatic and better in one simple way. When you manually switch off wifi and force your phone on to cellular data every app on your phone that you've allowed to use cellular data has immediate access to it, background, foreground or whatever. This feature as Apple explains, and I trust them to be honest, doesn't allow background apps to use the cellular data while it's using wifi assist to speed up whatever foreground activity you're doing.
If this feature were coming on automatically while my phone was in my pocket and burning up data on background apps it would be pointless and negligent on the part of Apple to have it set to on by default. The fact that it ONLY speeds up FOREGROUND apps means that having it on by default is both helpful and justified. If you're doing that much with your phone, actively in the foreground while you're on a weak signal and need to use cellular then you should consider making changes.
You have the options to either increase your data cap to allow for the usage thus making whatever your doing work faster. You can relocate your wifi router to increase coverage in whatever area of your home is causing such a major degradation in wifi quality that's causing your phone to use wifi assist. You can upgrade your router to give better coverage. You can purchase a wifi extender to give better coverage. Or if your budget is truly that tight, when you get the first data usage warning, and with AT&T it's at 75%, you can know you have an issue and either toggle off cellular data for apps that you don't want using it, or turn off wifi assist.
These are choices any consumer can make. In the end what people need to think about is simply this. For well over 90% of iPhone customers using iOS 9 and later wifi assist being on will be a good thing. For that large majority they may never give this feature a second thought. Their phone will 'just work' and that's all they'll care about. For most of us that's why we're iPhone users in the first place, we want a phone that 'just works'. Is it fair on the vast majority of customers to have to seek out and enable a feature they will enjoy because of a very small minority for whom it's a problem? No, it's not. If it is a problem make one of the above mentioned changes. Could the toggle for this feature be placed at the top of the page? Yes. Should it be? Yes. Will it be? I'd be willing to guarantee in an update before iOS 10 it will be relocated. Is a toggle's location in the settings an excuse? Hell no. You can in no way try to say that having to flick your finger a few times down a page to a switch places and undo burden on you. If you're that lazy then picking up your phone in a the first place must be a true struggle for you.
This lawsuit is nothing but a frivolous waste of time and energy and i'll be surprised if it can 1. be granted class action status to begin with or 2. get before a judge more than a couple of times before it is tossed for being the joke that it is.
Anyone that thinks this is anything more than a law firm trying to get some publicity for themselves and taking the long shot bet that Apple might just settle out of court is fooling themselves. I'd be willing to bet that even the lawyers that filed this suit know already they really don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a dime out of Apple.
Personally I love the feature. I only had a 1GB per month cap the whole way through the beta and never got near an overage. I love that if i'm on my phone doing something as I leave home the switch to LTE from my wifi seems to be much more seamless.
Basically I look at this feature as automating and simplifying something that every single smartphone user of any brand has done at least once and probably 100 times. Turning off wifi when the signal sucks so that they can do what they want to do. However, this feature makes that step automatic and better in one simple way. When you manually switch off wifi and force your phone on to cellular data every app on your phone that you've allowed to use cellular data has immediate access to it, background, foreground or whatever. This feature as Apple explains, and I trust them to be honest, doesn't allow background apps to use the cellular data while it's using wifi assist to speed up whatever foreground activity you're doing.
If this feature were coming on automatically while my phone was in my pocket and burning up data on background apps it would be pointless and negligent on the part of Apple to have it set to on by default. The fact that it ONLY speeds up FOREGROUND apps means that having it on by default is both helpful and justified. If you're doing that much with your phone, actively in the foreground while you're on a weak signal and need to use cellular then you should consider making changes.
You have the options to either increase your data cap to allow for the usage thus making whatever your doing work faster. You can relocate your wifi router to increase coverage in whatever area of your home is causing such a major degradation in wifi quality that's causing your phone to use wifi assist. You can upgrade your router to give better coverage. You can purchase a wifi extender to give better coverage. Or if your budget is truly that tight, when you get the first data usage warning, and with AT&T it's at 75%, you can know you have an issue and either toggle off cellular data for apps that you don't want using it, or turn off wifi assist.
These are choices any consumer can make. In the end what people need to think about is simply this. For well over 90% of iPhone customers using iOS 9 and later wifi assist being on will be a good thing. For that large majority they may never give this feature a second thought. Their phone will 'just work' and that's all they'll care about. For most of us that's why we're iPhone users in the first place, we want a phone that 'just works'. Is it fair on the vast majority of customers to have to seek out and enable a feature they will enjoy because of a very small minority for whom it's a problem? No, it's not. If it is a problem make one of the above mentioned changes. Could the toggle for this feature be placed at the top of the page? Yes. Should it be? Yes. Will it be? I'd be willing to guarantee in an update before iOS 10 it will be relocated. Is a toggle's location in the settings an excuse? Hell no. You can in no way try to say that having to flick your finger a few times down a page to a switch places and undo burden on you. If you're that lazy then picking up your phone in a the first place must be a true struggle for you.
This lawsuit is nothing but a frivolous waste of time and energy and i'll be surprised if it can 1. be granted class action status to begin with or 2. get before a judge more than a couple of times before it is tossed for being the joke that it is.
Anyone that thinks this is anything more than a law firm trying to get some publicity for themselves and taking the long shot bet that Apple might just settle out of court is fooling themselves. I'd be willing to bet that even the lawyers that filed this suit know already they really don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a dime out of Apple.
I'll wait for actual evidence to show up, if it ever does. My anecdotal use isn't going to prove anything to anyone, just like someone else's anecdotal use won't.
I like the feature but Apple needs to either make these things more conspicuous or disable by default and let the advanced users enable the features.
Imagine the lawsuits that will be filed based on people choosing to download 1 GB+ apps or games over their cellular connections and hitting high data usage and blaming Apple for not making something clear somewhere or providing some limit that is enabled by default to prevent them from using so much data on downloading apps and games.
I work for a phone carrier in Australia and this feature has been a plague of customers coming in yelling at us for charging them for excess data usage when they haven't changed the way they've used the phone. As a carrier we don't reimburse people for their own usage, if they've used it they have to pay for it.
It's a bit slack that Apple had it on by default but at the end of the day when you update to iOS 9 there is a description of the features it adds, its you're own responsibility to read that. If you don't, then too bad.
It's a bit slack that Apple had it on by default but at the end of the day when you update to iOS 9 there is a description of the features it adds, its you're own responsibility to read that. If you don't, then too bad.
And should apple put it above individual app switches to let it much easier to find by an average user?
I would have called Apple as many times as it took to figure out how to turn that feature off, if I couldn't find the answer on their site. I'd also email Apple feedback and let them know (that seems to help, especially if you're a polite pain in the ass.) If I still had issues, finally I would email Tim Cook about it.
If something out of the ordinary happens, I call or go back to the store. I was able to return a couple of items past the return date by being polite and having proof of the issue.
I am not a fan of the sloppy software releases Apple have released these past two years, but WiFi / LTE is something I was very aware of while I owned an iPhone (had a low data allotment) so I would have noticed something was up pretty quick and contacted Apple about it.
If something out of the ordinary happens, I call or go back to the store. I was able to return a couple of items past the return date by being polite and having proof of the issue.
I am not a fan of the sloppy software releases Apple have released these past two years, but WiFi / LTE is something I was very aware of while I owned an iPhone (had a low data allotment) so I would have noticed something was up pretty quick and contacted Apple about it.
increase data usage ? so users are not aware that they are now downloading over cellar and not wi-fi ?
The icon is right there in the status bar. No need for the lawsuit, because you can turn if OFF. Thats how this will play out.
Its like saying all Apple users hate Location services, but rather then turn if off, we'll file a lawsuit because we don't like to be tracked.
The icon is right there in the status bar. No need for the lawsuit, because you can turn if OFF. Thats how this will play out.
Its like saying all Apple users hate Location services, but rather then turn if off, we'll file a lawsuit because we don't like to be tracked.
Ummm as I've said before I'm a hi Apple fan and don't agree with this law suit but this feature is too hidden and I never read about when I updated - just read about in smh and disabled it-
Sorry this came to mind
- go to about 3 mins 40so u'r saying everyone is using their phone in landscape when the issue happens ....lol.... come on.. Regardless of that the option is still there.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT205296
how much more "in plain site" can u get ? must it be in Control panel swipe up to take notice ?
as i said, this is an open and shut case.
I know I can turn the feature off, but I'm not responsible for my own actions, this is Anerica, so I'll sue anyone.