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appleuser15

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 16, 2015
41
3
As title says

Do you leave it on all the time, or only when WiFi is unavailable.
 
Is there some reason why I wouldn't leave it on all the time? If the phone has a wifi connection, it will use it, if it has a cellular connection, it will use it.

Please don't spout the "wifi assist" paranoia at me, either. If you have a reasonable rationale for turning it off... what is it?
 
I pay for 15 GB and I still leave it on. Never know when I'm out of wifi range. I really don't care. I'll pay $15 for an extra GB if I go over or hell 2GB.
 
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Yes. I get better speeds sometimes on LTE than my home wifi sometimes. Also have 30GB family share and don't even go near that limit. So LTE it is.
 
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Yes unless I somehow am about to go over my data cap, but I have wifi in most places I need internet so I never get close. Also in the past I was on prepaid plans and didn't always pay for data, then I had it off so I wouldn't run through all the money I had on the account. I didn't notice any real difference in battery life using solely wifi vs using a mix of wifi and data so I don't see any good reason to turn it off unless you are out of data for the month and want to avoid overages.
 
I used to turn cellular off when I was using wifi and turn cellular back on when I left the house just to save a little battery (I have a kinda blah signal at my house) when I used to be a battery nazi but I don't worry about it anymore. Didn't seem to help much anyway.
 
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Is there some reason why I wouldn't leave it on all the time? If the phone has a wifi connection, it will use it, if it has a cellular connection, it will use it.

Please don't spout the "wifi assist" paranoia at me, either. If you have a reasonable rationale for turning it off... what is it?
Dude chill, I was just asking a question, I don't even know what "wifi assist" is.

And thanks for the answers. I guess it seems a bit pointless leaving it off.
 
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I have 6GB a month and I always leave it on. I leave all the features of the phone on since turning them off saves you negligible data/power but seriously undermines the benefits of having an iPhone [or smartphone in general].

I'd never tell anyone else what to do with their phone but I don't really get why anyone would want to turn this stuff off.

Thank you. What exactly is 'wifi assist'?
It's a feature introduced in iOS 9, where if you're connected to wifi but the signal is poor, your phone will use cell data instead. It changes the symbol in the status bar, so you do know when that happens but some people really disliked the feature. I like the idea but still end up having to to turn off wifi when I'm out and about [especially driving], otherwise, it tries to connect to public networks even though I'm not there long enough to get a good signal lol.
 
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I never turn cellular off, I "technically" have a 2gb plan I try not to exceed and rarely do. Its a business account so my company covers overages without question, I just try not to abuse it.
 
When not on WiFi, it can use data. If on WiFi, it can use data, but a very small amount unless you have WiFi Assist turned on and on a poor WiFi network.
In which case you basically wouldn't be on WiFi anymore when WiFi assist functionality kicks in and drops you to your cellular connection (due to the WiFi connection being bad).
 
No, I have unlimited and while vzw just raised my rates :( and I don't "abuse" it, I turn off when home to save battery life, such as it is.
I would think that being at home you'd be in the one place where battery life doesn't matter. ;)
 
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