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.
