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Apple Hit With Class Action Lawsuit for New Wi-Fi Assist Feature

I'm not sure this deserves a class action lawsuit but it's definitely something that shouldn't be turned on by default and people should be asked about it when setting up their new phone. Just like they are with Siri and location services and setting up Touch ID.
 
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This whole palava reminds me of the U2 debacle.

Everyone agreed that Apple/Cook shouldn’t have shoved that album down our throats. It's no different with wifi assist. A lot of people have restricted data on cellular. Apple should have set the default to Off, plain and simple.

Apple are getting into the habit of forcing things upon us, something that Steve Jobs was very careful to avoid. For example, I hear that Apple Music is getting turned on by default even for users who have unchecked it in iTunes. This is a worrying direction that Apple is taking. Less Big Brother, more humble servant, please.
 
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Qbnkelt said:
Actually I turned mine off when I upgraded my iPhone 6 to iOS 9 and it stayed off for the upgrade to iOS 9.1.

It did not toggle back on automatically.

Also, am I the only person who goes through settings when she gets new device? When are we as a society going to stop blaming others for our failure to act in a judicious manner? It's each person's responsibility to learn to use the device properly and to learn the new features.

Next thing someone will sue a cable company because AMC moved The Walking Dead without sending a personal letter thereby causing them to miss the show.
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I go through all the settings to, but I don't expect everyone else to have the knowledge and time to do the same.

It's each company's responsibility to make such things as clear as possible and consider the majority's knowledge about such things or willingness to learn such things. Which in this case, the company (Being Apple) failed to take into account all possible variables.

While this feature can be beneficial for those people with unlimited data or money to burn, it can be unbeneficial and result in a lot of stress for those people with limited data and not much money to burn...

If Apple wants this feature on by default, then Apple should take limited data plans into consideration and work with carriers to created a data plan detection method based on plans or offer up some info to the end user and the ability to opt-out (During Devices Setup).

Class action lawsuits really ever benefit any one but the lawyer (S). I prefer to take things like this head-on my self. I have already won a few cases. But, I don't expect everyone to have the time and knowledge to go through the learning and research processes...

In other news! Apple's IOS won first prize in the lag-a-lot contest!
 
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Jessica Lares said:
$5 million between the plaintiffs and class members. Maybe 100,000+ people are affected by this.

iPhone 4 class suit was the cost of the phone unlocked for plaintiffs, and class members just got $15 and the bumpers.
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Maybe pretty much nobody was affected by this. It's an opportunistic money grab by a scumbag law firm known to be a class action lawsuit mill. If they were to get a settlement offer from Apple (something I hope doesn't happen) the law firm would make a load of cash, and the named plaintiffs would get a chunk of undeserved cash, and members of the "class" (that includes me) would get a meaningless token. There's nothing wrong with a class action lawsuit that actually has merit. But this is the kind of trolling that gives legitimate cases a bad name.
 
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C DM said:
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.
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The point is people need to grow up and be accountable for their actions. Why does Apple have to remind people that this app is 100 megs and needs to us a wifi connection? Why not give them an option like Android does with their phones.
 
bobenhaus said:
The point is people need to grow up and be accountable for their actions. Why does Apple have to remind people that this app is 100 megs and needs to us a wifi connection? Why not give them an option like Android does with their phones.
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Perhaps because of frivolous lawsuits like the one being discussed here?
 
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Story of the day:
What I'm guessing is happening is that crazy data users who are too cheap to get a larger data package were always cutting it close to the limit. One day, they realized that they went over the limit by quite a bit because their careless child was too busy purchasing games and watching youtube videos having purposely turned off wifi for no reason other than because he is an ignorant little beast. Realizing that their son was at fault, they confronted the son, but his sweet puppy eyes melted their hearts and they decided that they shouldn't cough up the extra money because it wasn't their fault. Clearly, the child was tricked and forced to use data because a hologram of Tim Cook appeared in front of the child and instructed him as such. So the parents looked over everything that was new in iOS 9, and they giggled to themselves in delight as they read about the "wifi assist" feature.

"Look here sweetie," said the husband. "This can be a goldmine for us. We don't have to pay for the overage charges, and we can pocket some extra cash as well."

"Oh that's such a wonderful idea darling." the wife responded, gleefully clapping her hands. "How do we go about doing this?"

"We'll just start a class action lawsuit because it, by default, changes from wifi to data when the wifi signal is weak. It doesn't even tell us!" the husband boasted. "That's why I'm the smartest in my family." He said, tapping the side of his head.

"Yes you are snookums."

And so they started a class action lawsuit demanding that Apple pay for their overage fees because it's Apple fault for anything.

Bonus story of the day:
A family of 5 had 4 iPhone 6s's. But little Teddy was still a baby and didn't have a need for a smartphone so he got to use mommy and daddy's phone. One day, little Teddy accidentally charged $5000 in-app purchases. When questioning the parents, News 5 reported that there was no way for little Teddy to charge anything; this was clearly Evil Apple at work again.

As News 5 waited, little Teddy begged for the phone and the parents happily gave the phone to Teddy. News 5 observed that the phone was not unlocked, but little Teddy was able to put his thumb on the home button and unlock the phone. When questioned the parents, in a rather rude tone, said, "of course little Teddy has his fingerprint set up to be recognized on this phone. But those purchases were clearly accidentally, little Teddy was forced into purchasing that much." They looked at little Teddy, who nodded his head in excitement, unaware that the parents he looked up to were blithering idiots.

DISCLAIMER: I'm just joking BTW, neither of these stories is true, but nonetheless, I'm sure no one would be surprised if it was true.
 
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DoctorKrabs said:
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.
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I can see your point, I just want to say that some of us just still don't consider this lawsuit worthy. I know that I don't. I wish that the trend was towards holding consumers *more* accountable to paying attention to what they're doing rather than away. That's just my personal opinion, though - too much time spent with people who literally think it's everyone's fault except their own.
 
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shyam09 said:
"Look here sweetie," said the husband. "This can be a goldmine for us. We don't have to pay for the overage charges, and we can pocket some extra cash as well."

[..]

DISCLAIMER: I'm just joking BTW, neither of these stories is true, but nonetheless, I'm sure no one would be surprised if it was true.
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Cute story, but I did some digging and found the actual lawsuit. I don't think it has been posted in this thread:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/286705221/Apple-WiFi-Assist-Lawsuit

You can read through it, and decide if you think any of the claims are reasonable. But, I do want to point out a couple of things:
  1. The filing does not quantify the "overuse charges" experienced by the plaintiffs. It simply claims they did experience them, with no evidence. However, the filing does reference several Twitter postings by other people claiming outrageous overages -- again with no evidence.
  2. The filing names EIGHT different attorneys spread across five different law firms, spread all around the US. Interestingly, none of them have a mailing address in Florida, where the plaintiffs live.
If you still have any doubt whether this is a shakedown by the attorneys vs. a genuine attempt to correct an oversight, read the filing.

Then ask yourself: is this really necessary?
 
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sputnikv said:
In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem, but service providers are willing to impose these horrible data caps.
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Heh, they can impose if they want and I'll move to a provider that does not charge $15 for going 50 megs over my data limit..got the sim card today..the new provider throttles back to a slower speed if I go over my limit..that I can live with!
 
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Benjamin Frost said:
This whole palava reminds me of the U2 debacle.

Everyone agreed that Apple/Cook shouldn’t have shoved that album down our throats. It's no different with wifi assist. A lot of people have restricted data on cellular. Apple should have set the default to Off, plain and simple.

Apple are getting into the habit of forcing things upon us, something that Steve Jobs was very careful to avoid. For example, I hear that Apple Music is getting turned on by default even for users who have unchecked it in iTunes. This is a worrying direction that Apple is taking. Less Big Brother, more humble servant, please.
Click to expand...

I agree, the default "smart" features are something I can do without!
and iTunes is a huge pain in the @ss! It's always trying to automatically download..
 
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dannyyankou said:
So since I'm an Apple fanboy who happens to have a brain and doesn't m defend Apple about everything...

These people have a fair point. It's a feature that turns wifi off and eats data, and it's turned on automatically with no warning when you update to iOS 9. I could see it being a problem for people who have weak wifi connection.
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So does the WiFi icon go away or does it not go away? And I would assume that any services that are restricted to WiFi only (eg, iCloud Photo Library, app updates, backups, possibly podcast downloads depending on settings), are still restricted to WiFI.

This also only applies to the front-most app and doesn't apply to third-party apps streaming video or audio or downloading separate files (like an email client would).
 
Mclovincr said:
I would love to have a smart-switch in iOS (like android). Every time I'm connected to a hot spot the cellular data goes off. Once I'm out of that range the cellular data goes on again. That would be nice...
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That's how cellular data has worked on iOS from day one (as in June 2007).
 
manu chao said:
So does the WiFi icon go away or does it not go away? And I would assume that any services that are restricted to WiFi only (eg, iCloud Photo Library, app updates, backups, possibly podcast downloads depending on settings), are still restricted to WiFI.

This also only applies to the front-most app and doesn't apply to third-party apps streaming video or audio or downloading separate files (like an email client would).
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I've said this before, but I'll say it again...

The status bar is hidden in landscape view in Safari. There's no indication of the connectivity.
 
duervo said:
I'm not aware of any cellular provider that does not text you when you are getting close to reaching your monthly data limit. In fact, an alert at 90% usage is quite common, and I find it very hard to believe that they did not know that they were reaching their limit.
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I once had a new podcast client (due to a bug), not honour the WiFi-only download of podcasts. It downloaded 5 GB of data within less than an hour. I got the SMS but I didn't realise what was the cause of it until it was already done downloading.
 
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