EFF Says iOS 11's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Toggles in Control Center Are Misleading and Compromise Security

Rogifan said:
So having WiFi and Bluetooth on compromise security? I’ll bet 95-99% of consumers are never toggling these things on/off.
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I toggle WiFi off quite often. But not for security. So to me, this change is a huge improvement. Who has ever turned off WiFi because of security concerns? (And doesn't work at a place that has some security training).
 
Typical Apple. They always make one change by ruining another thing when the solution is so obvious like how about 3D Touch to easily flip between temporarily and off

chucker23n1 said:
I'm pretty sure that's not true. Hitting Airplane Mode clearly turns the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular icons grey, and in addition adds a diagonal line to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It's quite clearly communicating that none of these are connected. You can, however, explicitly connect to Wi-Fi even with Airplane Mode on (but this isn't new).
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Nope. When i enable airplane mode my wifi and bluetooth stays on. I used it a lot the pst few days cuz i am on vacation. Speaking of, why is the mobile data icon green when activated unlike wifi and bluetooth, which are blue and why is the rotation switch red? Its all over the place really
 
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Oldfash33 said:
Bingo! For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why my Apple Watch was still connected when I had bluetooth turned off through control center. Apparently it wasn’t Truly off.
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No. It is actually connected because it rememmbers the networks that the phone was connected to. This is explained on the Apple forum.
 
MEJHarrison said:
Simple? No, the Control Panel is simple. Turning it "off" to disconnect from the current bad connection, then "on" again to reconnect to a better connection should be simple. If I need to load a separate app to connect to a better WiFi signal, I'll go to the Settings app. I'm honestly not seeing any advantage whatsoever in your solution. It sounds like a flashlight or emoji app to be honest. Totally unnecessary in today's world.
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App is a lot simpler than going into settings.
My WiFi manager after one tap shows a list of available WiFi connections with the connected WiFi at the top with a green tick.
Tap the tick to disconnect. 2 taps in total. Or tap another WiFi with a stronger signal. 2 taps. Or disconnect and exit. 2 taps.
 
The control center buttons now mean disconnect. What’s hard to understand about that? The settings app on the other hand is pretty explicit in its controls meaning.
 
2IS said:
There it is, the most retarded post I'll read all day... Your solution for me wanting to turn off my blue tooth radio is airplane mode? I'd love to now what you think airplane mode does.
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It turns off radios, such as Bluetooth.
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itsmilo said:
Nope. When i enable airplane mode my wifi and bluetooth stays on.
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I haven't seen that, and it doesn't match Apple's description.
 
Gilligan's last elephant said:
App is a lot simpler than going into settings.
My WiFi manager after one tap shows a list of available WiFi connections with the connected WiFi at the top with a green tick.
Tap the tick to disconnect. 2 taps in total. Or tap another WiFi with a stronger signal. 2 taps. Or disconnect and exit. 2 taps.
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I don't measure simplicity in terms of taps. Not when you're talking about the difference of 1-2 taps. But if you want to play this game, we can. Were I to download such an app, it would be placed in a folder called Utilities on the third page of my phone. As I always stay on my first page, that's two swipes and a tap before I'm even able to tap the icon. Settings is already on my main page ready to be tapped with no additional effort.

Regardless, I find using the built-in software to be the simplest solution in this particular case for my particular work flow. The number of taps doesn't factor into my decision at all. Even if I were to save 7-8 taps in an average day, it's not like I just reclaimed usable time. I don't get to save that time up for the end of the year or anything. I'm not going to say to myself, "Gee, I've saved sooo much time today, I think I can splurge and turn my head one last time to look around the room before going to bed!" And my fingers aren't in danger of wearing out. So I don't see any advantage to saving myself a tap. I wouldn't feel my life was any better thanks to less taps in a day.
 
I still think that using 3D touch, they'd easily be able to make it an option to disable through the control panel. At least give us a setting that we can choose the behavior ourselves!
 
840quadra said:
I am well aware of how Android works, and we simply we just disagree.

It’s a good design that is poorly documented. Like a few others have said, the added functionality over what iOS 10 had, is nice.

Honestly I would be fine if they restored the way these features worked in 10, so long as I could go into settings and issue quick disconnects. It’s dang nice to be able to detach from a wireless network quickly (to use Cellular) but still be able to Airdrop.
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I wouldn’t mind if you could go into settings to do that.

wigby said:
Apple lets you do all of this from settings and part of this from control center. They chose the one that more users typically need quicker access to for the control center and the one used less often for the settings menu. It doesn't matter what Android does because you're really complaining about change more than design.
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I think the evidence in here is very clear that it’s not what the ‘typical’ user needs. And we all know what you can do, it’s what you can’t do that has people complaining on here.
 
kruegdude said:
The control center buttons now mean disconnect. What’s hard to understand about that? The settings app on the other hand is pretty explicit in its controls meaning.
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Conceptually it's not hard to understand at all. Especially if you follow these forums and have been informed of the change. Most people don't come here and didn't see the stories. This change in behavior wasn't announced in the Tips app. The Control Center toggle appears to be the on/off switch we're all accustomed to, even though it's not. The button isn't clearly labeled. It's not hard to understand if it's been explained to you. But it certainly isn't an intuitive change and Apple has done little to spread the message far and wide. Sure, it's on their site. But most people don't visit Apple's site to see how something we've had for years operates.

I'm ok with the WiFi change and absolutely love the Bluetooth change. But to say that it's "not hard to understand" is a little misleading. If you're not familiar with the change, you may very well be quite confused when radios start turning themselves back on.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
EFF always feels the need to define things for everyone, even where they don't understand them. They've turned into a group that does nothing but complain and have given up on actually taking action as they use to.

Apple made this change because it's the intension most users have when they use that functionality. For most, they don't care if it's truly on or off, just that they can disconnect from the current network/device quickly. If you're that paranoid that you need to turn off everything, airplane mode it is.
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It is not about being paranoid. For my work, I needed the cellular network when I just need to turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth. Turning on airplane mode would not work the same. Also, going through different menu screens to turn off WiFi and then Bluetooth is time wasting when you need to do the same thing over and over again.
Apple's implementation now is just as bad as a incompetent programmer that turns off the feature when the programmer don't know how to make it work.
 
MacRumors said:
Moreover, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth automatically reenable at 5:00 a.m. local time each day, or if the device is restarted.

iOS 11 works this way so that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth continue to be available for AirDrop, AirPlay, Apple Pencil, Apple Watch, Location Services, and Continuity features like Handoff and Instant Hotspot.
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Coming back on at 5am - how does that help with any of those things?
 
itsmilo said:
There you go

MEDIA=youtube]hDTUjnEFOG0

Every thing else would be even more annoying to me
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that’s because you turned them on while in airplane mode. iOS will remember your last used configuration for airplane mode then go to that setup when enabled again.

as in, turn wifi off while in airplane mode. then disable airplane mode then turn it back on.
you see?
 
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Dave.UK said:
Doe's the off in the control center explain it like that?

Can't believe people are defending that off doesn't mean off!
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Actually yes it does... That was my point. You click it and it says “disconnected from *X Wifi/Bluetooth connection*”. I believe it used to say “Bluetooth off” etc. I agree that because the behavior changed from iOS 10 is my biggest concern with it, but I think this is the preferred behavior. For 90% of people in 90% of circumstances this is exactly what is desired. I get flakey wifi all the time and just want to disconnect, but that doesn’t mean I wanna turn it off forever or to turn off airdrop or my connection to my Apple Watch. For anyone who wants to ACTUALLY turn it off that option is still in settings, but for the quick action, disconnect is more useful.

fat jez said:
That's die-hard Apple fans for you, they will defend whatever Apple do. Some of us take a slightly more realistic view.
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Haha trust me I’m not a die-hard defend Apple by any means. I’ve been seriously considering switching away for a while now. I have a lot of concerns with Apple, but this isn’t one of them. This is part of the “shift to mainstream” (I.e. dumbing down/simplifying everything). I don’t have a problem with that at all. I understand why some do.
 
Not a fan of the change. Mind you I basically never toggle mine on or off either way and the behavior provided currently is what I actually want 95% of the time I do toggle it. However, is there really a good reason to change the functionality? I really think this was a solution to a problem that really wasn’t there in the first place.
 
So Apple have actually removed wifi & Bluetooth deactivation in control center and replaced it with "device disconnect". Now it's a longer process to actually deal with those controls.
 
There should be 3 states:

Toggle in green: Connected
Toggle in blue: WiFi or BT is on, but not connected
Toggle off: WiFi or BT is off

Pressing while off: turns on WiFi or BT and tries to connect. If it connects to a known WiFi or BT, turns green, if not, stays blue.
Pressing while green: disconnects WiFi or BT, at it stays Blue. Another quick press, turns it off. While in blue, same behavior as now about reconnecting and if you arrive to another known WiFi or BT it will auto connect and change to green.
Pressing while blue: indicator blinks in blue and tries to connect. Another quick press, turns it off.


Cellular data already changes to green when activated.
 
apolloa said:
I think the evidence in here is very clear that it’s not what the ‘typical’ user needs.
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Are you saying a MacRumors thread with a few dozen users is more representative than Apple's research?

apolloa said:
And we all know what you can do, it’s what you can’t do that has people complaining on here.
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I haven't seen much in the way of what, exactly, users are trying to accomplish that they cannot. To what end are they disabling radios that cannot also be accomplished by Airplane Mode?
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fat jez said:
Me actually. I work in an office where photography and wireless network devices are forbidden. So Bluetooth and WiFi must be switched off.
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Your office forbids Wi-Fi but allows anyone to carry their own mobile phone with them, rather than centrally enforcing this with MDM?
 
This is probably more abut the handing of handling direction...

It would have been better to switch the radios off after you disable Bluetooth and wifi, and turn them back on *after* you've enabled these options...

Apple does that prior to iOS11?

I don't think Airplay, Apple pencil etc should gain hidden access regardless of the option.

I'm siding with EFF here. Sounds like Apple wants to fool the user
 
EFF is blowing some credibility here.

Not *all* controls need to be about privacy.

Apple is making it clear these aren’t. They are about what you’re connecting to.

No problem, though, because you can shut off these radios in another way. There is literally nothing to complain about here.

But EFF feels the need to get attention, so here we are, debating nothing. These buttons have become better at one thing and not as good for another thing, but you can still do the other thing, so what’s the problem? Oh yeah: there is no problem.

Except EFF is blowing their credibility on nothing. Idiots. We might really need them.
 
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