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

[HEK]

If you are on an unlimited data plan ignore this.

If you are on a data plan with limits, either regularly check the amount of data consumed for the month. Or get a dumb phone for calls only. And all you kids out there, make sure your parents and grandparents know to check or take their phones away, as they don't understand how to use them.

I was driving my GM car and it ran out of gas, it's GM's fault they should have told me I could run out of gas. And another thing, lately there was this annoying dinging going on the last couple days before this crap car failed me.

 

[HEK]

Yes, pretty much everything shouls be off on a new phone. Also When I got my new phone I had to toggle on 4G manually, thankyou very much.
If the other OEMs did it too they were also wrong. Having lots of friends acting badly doesn’t excuse your behaviour, you know that right?

My my how acidic your comments are!

 

[ptb42]

You're right. My mistake. No need for the snark, though.

My "snark", as you called it, was to point out that your mistake is a perfect example of why this is the wrong way to solve this problem.

Regardless, the very existence of class action lawsuits is a deterrent mechanism. We could debate about the potential efficacy of them without much evidence to support either view, and I suspect we'd come to the same place we were before—you abhor it, and I accept it as "the way things work" (TM) and that there's some value in it.

We would agree there is value in class-action lawsuits, for intentional wrong-doing and gross negligence where there was real harm to the victims.

This isn't one of those cases. It's nothing but a money-grubbing scheme for the lawyers, and actually prevents speedy resolution. In the long run, the consumers lose.

 

[Alenore]

Just learn how to semi-use your phone and turn iit off if it's a problem. Bunch of babies. I love the feature.

But I thought the whole point about iOS and OS X was even your grandma could use it without caring about settings?


Someone is streaming on Spot... Apple Music*. wifi gets low, Cell goes on, boom.

 

[alexgowers]

It's optional, but it's on by default. And no, you don't realize you're using it. That's why people were so concerned about it.

No wifi icon means you're on cellular data. Sorry but the bloody icon should give you a clue! On or off its not a lawsuit especially a class action. I can see courts awarding overages for those that can prove is unusual and caused directly by this feature and not by a change in the users browsing habits. I suspect it's psychosomatic in the first place and these guys with charges did something unusual like download a movie and leaving the house before it had finished.

I call ******** that the feature could even add much data when clearly is only designed to load apps and websites anyway when wifi is unresponsive.

 

[DoctorKrabs]

I'll bet $5 million that everyone blaming users for not reading the release notes are people who either learned about the feature from MacRumors articles themselves or found it after already updating to iOS 9.

 

[mariusignorello]

Whilst in theory this is the way to go, in practice it doesn’t work like that. Apple are one company where they purport to make things easy for granny. I might read release notes but she doesn’t, geddit?
Have you read the entire EULA before using your device? I bet not. In fact any device or software. Don’t be so condescending.

I never said anything about the license. The release notes are supposed to be (in theory) the exciting part about a major update but since the public couldn't give a rat's a** about them, fine. Maybe Apple shouldn't publish any release notes.

The release notes are their way of protecting themselves (in addition to the license), so they cannot be blamed in this situation. It's still public ignorance.

 

[deathcab]

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.

They don't have a fair point. This would be the equivalent of suing Nest (Google) to recover for an increase in your power bill because you voluntarily updated your firmware which included a new feature that was turned on by default that you opted not to turn off (either by choice or inadvertently due to the fact you didn't read the documentation about the update because, well, no one reads that) which ended up making your A/C run a little more often thus increasing power usage. See how ridiculous it sounds in that context?

 

[mariusignorello]

I'll bet $5 million that everyone blaming users for not reading the release notes are people who either learned about the feature from MacRumors articles themselves or found it after already updating to iOS 9.

Are you a developer at all? Do you know how many betas of iOS 9 there were? If you were in fact a developer, you'd be reading a lot more release notes than just the iOS 9 production ones.

 

[sbailey4]

Nice blame shifting.



Yes, because none of us had to pay for overages due to this lousy feature being auto enabled.

Correct, you didn't pay for overages because of the feature. You pay for overages for using more data than you had on your plan and weren't paying attention.

 

[DoctorKrabs]

Are you a developer at all? Do you know how many betas of iOS 9 there were? If you were in fact a developer, you'd be reading a lot more release notes than just the iOS 9 production ones.

I'm not a developer.
Doesn't that prove my point? Developers are an extreme minority. The whole argument is about the general public not being informed. I see you're a developer and that's probably why you're one of the few who did know about WiFi Assist. It seems like you can't imagine a world where 300 million users don't read every word of the release notes. They're not developers like you.

 

[sbailey4]

You are mistaken. It's an optional feature AFTER you figure out its on. My wife homeschools our children and never once noticed her phone switching from wifi to cellular. We now have a huge overage bill. Explain how she would have known? She's owned every iPhone since the 3G and never once had to watch the signal indicator like a hawk. Apple turns this on without telling her.

So Apples fault she "never once noticed her phone was switching from wifi to cellular"? And to "explain how she would have known" there is an indicator just like there always has been indicating wifi or cellular. iPhones have ALWAYS switched back to cellular if wifi crapped out. Nothing new there. Now it just does it sooner so you are not sitting there waiting for 5 min for a page to load and waiting for it to finally give up and switch back. Its called "A better user experience".

 

[samcraig]

I agree with you about this.

But, the remedy is not a class-action lawsuit that does nothing but line the pockets of lawyers. It should have been taken up with Apple.

Ideally, it should have been caught during beta-testing. I didn't participate, but I've been a beta-tester for other products and have reported things with unintended consequences that were subsequently fixed.

Ironically, Apple is probably LESS inclined to change the default setting now, because it would be characterized as an admission of fault.

NOBODY wins something like this when the lawyers get involved -- except the lawyers. That's why I shake my head and sigh when I see people claim it's the solution.

I dislike excess litigation as much as the next guy. But as you know, the way these class action things often go is that the parties agree on a settlement in which the defendant expressly doesn't admit fault but pays a settlement anyway. And then the issue in question tends to get fixed. So I see these things as a necessary evil.

This

The issue in question was easily fixable without lining the pockets of a lawyer. Apple has responded to similar problems without being threatened.

And who do you think will pay the settlement? In the long run, it's the customer. In this case, it's a small blip on Apple's radar (which is exactly the plan -- keep the amount small enough to make a defense pointless), but that's money that could have been spent on more productive things.

A class action lawsuit is for serious wrongdoing -- not a simple disagreement over whether a setting should be on or off by default.

My "snark", as you called it, was to point out that your mistake is a perfect example of why this is the wrong way to solve this problem.


We would agree there is value in class-action lawsuits, for intentional wrong-doing and gross negligence where there was real harm to the victims.

This isn't one of those cases. It's nothing but a money-grubbing scheme for the lawyers, and actually prevents speedy resolution. In the long run, the consumers lose.

As stated above - much like the in-app issue that was resolved - only came after litigation. Unfortunate as it is - sometimes corporations need the threat of legal action to take action. Otherwise, it's much each to ignore as a "non issue."

Personally, I don't think this is something Apple would have changed on their own because I believe they think they implemented this correctly and logically for them. Unfortunately, I don't think some of their customer base agrees.

 

[Solomani]

Who puts up a lawsuit over that, honestly?

People who need free money from Rich Uncle Apple?

 

[HEK]

This

I believe they think they implemented this correctly and logically for them. Unfortunately, I don't think some of their customer base agrees.

And based on the responses in here some of the customer base does agree how it was implemented. Neither opinions are going to sway anyone taking opposite view.

We continue making a deeper rut around this barn such that soon it will be a moat we can fill with water.

 

[pdaholic]

Solution: turn feature off, problem solved!

That's only half the solution. The other half is to drop all lawyers off on a remote planet.

 

[C DM]

But I thought the whole point about iOS and OS X was even your grandma could use it without caring about settings?


Someone is streaming on Spot... Apple Music*. wifi gets low, Cell goes on, boom.

And that's is how the phones are designed, to seamlessly go off a crappy WiFi connection to a cellular one. It happened even before iOS 9 and WiFi assist, you just sat there without a working connection for longer before the phone switched. I'm sure people who were streaming music that suddenly got cut off for some time appreciated that they had no connection for a minute or two before the bad connection dropped and didn't feel the experience of it all wasn't bad when their music just cut off without any indication of what the issue was.

Oh, and the steaming issue you are using as an example is the very thing that wouldn't even have WiFi assist apply to it by the way.

 

[flaw600]

Do me a favor. Open safari, use it in landscape, and tell me if you see a wifi or cellular signal in the status bar. The answer is you don't because apple hides the status bar in landscape. So unless you're using it in portrait, the cellular signal doesn't appear.

Apple disclosed the feature at time of upgrade. Not Apple's fault if people don't read

 

[C DM]

So Apples fault she "never once noticed her phone was switching from wifi to cellular"? And to "explain how she would have known" there is an indicator just like there always has been indicating wifi or cellular. iPhones have ALWAYS switched back to cellular if wifi crapped out. Nothing new there. Now it just does it sooner so you are not sitting there waiting for 5 min for a page to load and waiting for it to finally give up and switch back. Its called "A better user experience".

Lots of complaining about Apple's user experince going downhill and then when Apple takes steps to improve things (and even provides a user facing option on top of it, which they certainly haven't done before for these types of improvements they made before), then there are complaints about the improved experience (clearly people would rather sit with a phone that has no connection for a few minutes trying to figure out why things aren't working before it switches on its own vs. having the phone be a bit smarter and do that same switch just a bit earlier instead of waiting and doing nothing for some time).

 

[joueboy]

I do understand the real concern about this, especially if it's turned on by default, since not all of us has unlimited or big chunk of data in their plans. It's a nice thing to have with our current situation even the WiFi Calling. But if you think about these features only hinders a potential improvement from our ISP's and carriers. If the carriers thinks that their customer still receives call in their homes because of WiFi Calling they may not interested of improving their network in remote areas. Same as ISP if they think their customers are ok with their service because of WiFi Assist and their experience not really much of a concern why bother upgrading their service. You have to remember these features exist because both services are lacking of something one way or the other. And Apple just want to ease up their customer user experience. But this is not a cure to our current situation more like a bandaid.

 

[CraigJ]

How did those people deal with dropped WiFi connections when connectivity would get bad somewhere prior to iOS 9? The functionality was there for many iOS versions, and has been getting fine tuned in each one basically, this is just another fine tuning (to provide a better experince--to avoid people sitting with a phone that isn't getting any data and wondering why things aren't working for them) that works the same way it all worked before with the only real difffence being that a user facing option is now provided vs one not being there before when they have made improvements to their WiFi detection in the past.

This is false. It most definitely does not work the way it worked before. The way it worked before, if I was at the limit of my WiFi the phone would continue using WiFi, maybe 20% to 30% slower. Now, if I'm in the back yard the phone decides that the WiFi isn't good enough (even though it is) and silently starts using LTE. That is NOT how it worked before. I had no idea this feature existed. And don't hide behind the release notes excuse - adding a new feature that can potentially cost the user 10s or possibly even 100s of dollars should either be a mandatory setup option that you enable or disable (like iCould) or disabled by default.

The blind defense of Apple here is disgusting, and from the looks of it a large number of people defending Apple don't even seem to understand the problem. Did I somehow end up on BGR or something?

 

[skinned66]

I had this exact same problem, and it cost me $5,000,000 in overage fees.

Did they force this on in the iOS 9.1 official release? Because I had to turn it on in beta.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/22050671/

Maybe they should switch carriers and get courtesy messages and info such as these.

 

[CraigJ]

If you are on an unlimited data plan ignore this.

If you are on a data plan with limits, either regularly check the amount of data consumed for the month. Or get a dumb phone for calls only. And all you kids out there, make sure your parents and grandparents know to check or take their phones away, as they don't understand how to use them.

I was driving my GM car and it ran out of gas, it's GM's fault they should have told me I could run out of gas. And another thing, lately there was this annoying dinging going on the last couple days before this crap car failed me.

That is a poor analogy. I went over my GB plan 4 or 5 days into the cycle because I uploaded a GB of images from my phone and it used LTE. This was, BTW, in my home no more that 15 ft from my AirPort Extreme, which has no issues streaming HD video to my iPad or iPhone 100 ft away.

It's not just that the feature is there and enabled by default, it's also that it has a very low threshold for determining that a "poor" connection is.

 

[sbailey4]

I still find it laughable that you persist defending Apple. It should be an optional on off thing when you set up your iPhone then. Like Siri and Location settings are, with a warning of what it does.

Did the update notes say "Warning, this feature may cost you extra, as it may use your mobile data when you expect it not to"?

We're talking average users here.

Um you don't "set up your phone" when you upgrade. And nothing to do with using cellular data has ever said "Warning using cellular data will cost you." Its understood. Try again.

 

[sbailey4]

The stupidity is on Apple's part. Users should have been warned properly. It should not be enabled by default, as it can and has caused many people to have charged stupid amounts of money for data that was downloaded despite them being connected to a wifi network, when previous iOS behaviour was that when you're on a wifi network, the wifi overrides mobile data. So people will obviously stick to their same pattern of usage (EG - wait till you're home to watch youtube, because you're on a limited plan, and you have wifi at home), but will get hit with big bills in the case wifi is patchy that night.

I dont believe you are understanding what this feature is. It still does. It works the same way nothing has changed there. The difference it IF wifi gets crap and cant seem to do its job, iOS switches to cellular to "Assist" the app with connectivity pretty seamless and faster than it has in the past. It used to do the exact same thing but the app would sit there for a bit until iOS finally decided that WIFI was hosed THEN it would drop it and connect to cellular. As C DM has stated several times now its more of a timing issue AND a new UI switch. (probably more likely added to claim there was some fancy new feature). Its NOT using cellular just because and randomly.