What a crock of absolute BS. How often are these people on wifi network so poor that it forces the phone onto cellular data instead? Honestly. I'd compare their bills and usage from before the new feature. Lastly, I have fully unlimited dada with T Mobile... It's not Apple's fault they don't.
You are very insensitive to those of us who don't want to waste our money on unlimited data.
BTW since there is WiFi almost everywhere, I don't come near to using my 100mb data limit.
I'm not out of touch. If someone doesn't know the difference between wifi and cellular data, they shouldn't be using a smartphone. There isn't much to explain. If you're not on wifi, you will obviously be using cellular data. How will it drive up the cost? When you start using up data, you get warnings from the phone companies. It's your responsibility to make sure you don't go over your monthly data allowance.
Agreed, the customer is responsible for knowing the difference between wifi and cellular and for monitoring usage. But this feature was not explained. The switch was just flipped. I don't believe it merits a class action lawsuit, but this is sloppy on Apple's part. They are adding a new feature to the OS that has the potential to drive up someone's monthly bill. During the upgrade process, Apple should have explained the feature and asked the user if he or she wanted to turn it on. I don't think every new feature needs to be highlighted to such an extreme, but one that has the potential to impact someone's bill should.
BTW since there is WiFi almost everywhere, I don't come near to using my 100mb data limit.
It may be somewhere in the documentation, but I would like to bring to your attention that public Wi-Fi can be dangerous, especially if it is unencrypted, as in no password required. You check your mail, fill out a web form or check your bank balance and you could potentially be giving away your login credentials and personal information to a hacker sitting next to you at a cafe. I have ask to join wifi turned off and only use cellular when not at home or at work.
Agreed, the customer is responsible for knowing the difference between wifi and cellular and for monitoring usage. But this feature was not explained. The switch was just flipped. I don't believe it merits a class action lawsuit, but this is sloppy on Apple's part. They are adding a new feature to the OS that has the potential to drive up someone's monthly bill. During the upgrade process, Apple should have explained the feature and asked the user if he or she wanted to turn it on. I don't think every new feature needs to be highlighted to such an extreme, but one that has the potential to impact someone's bill should.
Ultimately, I feel people are responsible. The main purpose of an iPhone is simply to call people. The rest of the stuff like apps, games, etc are features on the phone. If someone isn't tech savvy and doesn't know how to use those features, they should take the time to learn about them. Having said that, Apple should have left Wi-Fi Assist off by default, but regardless, that still doesn't merit a lawsuit.
They could have default set to on and the first time it is about to switch to cellular pop up a warning with a few choices such as always use assist, never use assist, use it this time only, always warn before using assist.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking, too. How hard would it have been to help users make an informed decision?
For those saying it's the user's responsibility to understand all this stuff before they install...BS, that's the last thing Apple wants! You know what that would do to adoption rates if there was some sort of expectation that users would take the time to understand these things beforehand. No, what Apple wants is for users to blindly install whatever they tell them to install and as quickly as possible. The Apple walled garden is a benevolent dictatorship.
Actually, their wifi more than likely acts up extremely often. I pay for over 100mbps and have the newest comcast router. It shows extremely high wifi speeds in tests, but across all my apple devices including my macbook ipad and iphone, there seems to be a lot of problems, freeze up on data loading and very slow loading on data. Even a mere google search has often caused me unusual disconnect or long wait times. I dont know much about how data and speed and all that, but im questioning the quality of uninterrupted data and wifi people get from providers like comcast.
The thing is, comcast knows its customers cant expect perfection and alwasy has an excuse. But apple is an industry giant and should be very well aware of internet and data connectivity issues. Hence the reason they are providing reaolutions.
But apple is growingly forcing features, content, apps, and now settings on consumers without their say. Tons of people have complained about apples integrated apps that many find inadequte or pointless. Most iphone users did not purchase an apple watch but apple still forces that app on consumer iphones. Apple went out of its way to automatically switch on this feature without regards or warning to the consumer. Apple wants these things to be active so that it appears that apples devices and software always run and connect better, so in the end, they benefit.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking, too. How hard would it have been to help users make an informed decision?
Thanks. At least someone agrees with me. And, make matters worse, when wifi assist is using cellular data it doesn't remove the wifi icon, it just makes it grey. Assuming it will be a tiny bar since the signal is weak, the user might not notice right away.
I am not thrilled myself about the heavy handed way Apple exerts control over use of the iPhone. Yet this is clearly a case of improvement for the users benefit. Anyone not aware of how their iPhone is accessing the internet probably should not even be on the internet. It's not asking a lot to be cognizant of your connection at any given moment. Regarding Comcast, I had connectivity problems from day one. Comcast swore my connection was perfect. My iPhone 6+ was replaced three times due to this issue. In the end I had to get tough with Comcast and demand a new WiFi modem. I've not had a single WiFi problem since. Remember that Comcast is a shady company at best and cannot be trusted to tell the truth about its services and products.
Actually, their wifi more than likely acts up extremely often. I pay for over 100mbps and have the newest comcast router. It shows extremely high wifi speeds in tests, but across all my apple devices including my macbook ipad and iphone, there seems to be a lot of problems, freeze up on data loading and very slow loading on data.
Those speed tests are bogus because they don't test real world usage. Speed test just sends a large chunk of data, but in the real world a web page might make hundreds of individual http requests to more than a few different servers just to display a single web page. It is usually the requests, handshakes, ssl encryption, jQuery min, stylesheets, etc. that cause the delays, not a slow down of the overall throughput of your ISP.
I'm not out of touch. If someone doesn't know the difference between wifi and cellular data, they shouldn't be using a smartphone. There isn't much to explain. If you're not on wifi, you will obviously be using cellular data. How will it drive up the cost? When you start using up data, you get warnings from the phone companies. It's your responsibility to make sure you don't go over your monthly data allowance. Apple does explain the feature. It's well documented on Apple's website.
But I think the issue is when your someplace like you own home and you have wifi, there is an expectation that you are not using your cellular data. Sure, if I'm out driving around, or even far enough out in my back yard, I know my phone may lose the wifi signal and switch to cellular. But if I'm sitting on my sofa, I don't have that expectation.
I might start streaming movie, and again, if I then wander out to my yard I know I might lose the wifi signal. But if I'm sitting on my sofa streaming a movie and my internet service slows to a crawl I would not automatically expect my phone to switch to cellular data. I could have a perfectly fine wifi signal from my router, but interference or issues with my ISP could be causing the data throughput to die. Knowing that I'm sitting 10 feet from my Airport Extreme and that I had a strong signal when I started my movie, I would have no way of knowing, and to reason to suspect, that in the middle of my movie my data switched to cellular. You wouldn't even see the icon change on the screen because it's not displayed when playing video full-screen.
Apple was foolish to roll this out in this manner. But this class action lawsuit, like so many others, should be tossed out until there is at least some measure of evidence showing meaningful financial losses buy consumers (yes, I know that's part of the purpose of the lawsuit, but the bar should be set a little higher for filing one).
I might start streaming movie, and again, if I then wander out to my yard I know I might lose the wifi signal. But if I'm sitting on my sofa streaming a movie and my internet service slows to a crawl I would not automatically expect my phone to switch to cellular data. I could have a perfectly fine wifi signal from my router, but interference or issues with my ISP could be causing the data throughput to die.
I'm not positive but I don't think that is how it works. If you have a strong wifi signal, regardless of data throughput, I don't think it will switch to cellular.
Thanks. At least someone agrees with me. And, make matters worse, when wifi assist is using cellular data it doesn't remove the wifi icon, it just makes it grey. Assuming it will be a tiny bar since the signal is weak, the user might not notice right away.
"When Wi-Fi Assist is activated, you'll see the cellular data icon in the status bar on your device."
Or does it grey out the icon AND show the cellular data icon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I'm not positive but I don't think that is how it works. If you have a strong wifi signal, regardless of data throughput, I don't think it will switch to cellular.
That would be something, at least. Even before iOS 9 (which I haven't installed yet), if I was in a very weak wifi area I wouldn't have been surprised that my phone switches to cellular. It happens sometimes in the office as I'm quite a ways from the nearest wifi node. Its when I have a strong wifi signal that this would be a surprise.
I know for me this feature killed me. I sold my iPhone 6 and deactivated my iPhone 5, naturally I restored my iCloud backup on to the device after updating to iOS 9. Guess what? I live in an apartment where the wifi signal has so much interference I basically restored the whole backup on cellular data. Around 12 GB of data in 30 minutes to an hour. On a 3 GB plan.
Then I call AT&T to discuss removing the overage charges as a one time exception (it was around $115) and they said I had used a gig just in the five minute phone call with them.
Not sure what happened with iOS 9 and wifi assist but after that I had to turn it off just to be safe.
And as far as the common user, forget about it, they probably had never heard of this feature. I work in iOS tech support and I still let that happen. I think it should've been off by default with an option to enable it just like they did with iCloud Drive. But that's not really Apple Style is it?
Crap, I didn't even know about this - it was buried at the bottom and I never even saw it! No wonder I got hit with $60 in overage fees and my wife's at $30 - I have a few bad spots in the house. This is a great feature for those with unlimited plans - but for the vast majority - it's something we will never want - unless it has a pop up "wifi data spotty - switching to cellular data - OK / Not OK"
I'm tech savvy but who has time to go over every setting everything a new OS update is applied? We do hold Apple to a higher standard of "it just works" (within reason). That's why we pay more money - to avoid this kind of crap. This is a mature product and something like this should have been called out and not defaulted on and buried.
I don't like lawsuits - but this is spot on. Glad I didn't update my parent's phones yet!
"When Wi-Fi Assist is activated, you'll see the cellular data icon in the status bar on your device."
Or does it grey out the icon AND show the cellular data icon?
I think you are right. I just tested it, but I'm still not sure how it differs from just switching over to cellular like it always did from an icon perspective.
I apparently have a really strong wifi signal, I had to walk about 50 meters down the driveway and out of line of sight to get out of wifi range and it did remove the wifi icon and replace it with the cellular. Surprisingly, I had to walk back towards the wifi router to within maybe 5 meters before it switched back to show 3 bars signal strength.
me and rocco go to the dog park every day. there are people who live across the park that have xifinity wifi. the iPhone routinely switches from wifi to cellular in back, because it has difficulty in staying connected. I've never seen this 'greyed' out wifi icon that apple talks about when the wifi signal is weak. all i see is either wifi or lte. we were at the dog park today, and i was watching tv on my iPhone, while being connected to wifi and i kept going back to the spring board and checking to make sure my data wasn't being used. according to apple, sling tv and other third party apps aren't allowed to use wifi assist.
Comments
I can understand going over by $20-$30 And maybe this is something that Apple should address but how do you go over by $5M?
I don't think anyone is claiming that a single account went over by $5M. It's a class action lawsuit.
I can understand going over by $20-$30 And maybe this is something that Apple should address but how do you go over by $5M?
It is the estimated total of the entire class action, (potentially millions of users affected.)
I don't like class action suits but sadly I agree they have a point. This should have been off as a default with a warning pop-up when turning it on.
I agree with you 100%.
It should have been off by default, also it should have been noted on first use after the iOS9 install.
What a crock of absolute BS. How often are these people on wifi network so poor that it forces the phone onto cellular data instead? Honestly. I'd compare their bills and usage from before the new feature. Lastly, I have fully unlimited dada with T Mobile... It's not Apple's fault they don't.
You are very insensitive to those of us who don't want to waste our money on unlimited data.
BTW since there is WiFi almost everywhere, I don't come near to using my 100mb data limit.
I'm not out of touch. If someone doesn't know the difference between wifi and cellular data, they shouldn't be using a smartphone. There isn't much to explain. If you're not on wifi, you will obviously be using cellular data. How will it drive up the cost? When you start using up data, you get warnings from the phone companies. It's your responsibility to make sure you don't go over your monthly data allowance.
Agreed, the customer is responsible for knowing the difference between wifi and cellular and for monitoring usage. But this feature was not explained. The switch was just flipped. I don't believe it merits a class action lawsuit, but this is sloppy on Apple's part. They are adding a new feature to the OS that has the potential to drive up someone's monthly bill. During the upgrade process, Apple should have explained the feature and asked the user if he or she wanted to turn it on. I don't think every new feature needs to be highlighted to such an extreme, but one that has the potential to impact someone's bill should.
BTW since there is WiFi almost everywhere, I don't come near to using my 100mb data limit.
It may be somewhere in the documentation, but I would like to bring to your attention that public Wi-Fi can be dangerous, especially if it is unencrypted, as in no password required. You check your mail, fill out a web form or check your bank balance and you could potentially be giving away your login credentials and personal information to a hacker sitting next to you at a cafe. I have ask to join wifi turned off and only use cellular when not at home or at work.
Agreed, the customer is responsible for knowing the difference between wifi and cellular and for monitoring usage. But this feature was not explained. The switch was just flipped. I don't believe it merits a class action lawsuit, but this is sloppy on Apple's part. They are adding a new feature to the OS that has the potential to drive up someone's monthly bill. During the upgrade process, Apple should have explained the feature and asked the user if he or she wanted to turn it on. I don't think every new feature needs to be highlighted to such an extreme, but one that has the potential to impact someone's bill should.
Ultimately, I feel people are responsible. The main purpose of an iPhone is simply to call people. The rest of the stuff like apps, games, etc are features on the phone. If someone isn't tech savvy and doesn't know how to use those features, they should take the time to learn about them. Having said that, Apple should have left Wi-Fi Assist off by default, but regardless, that still doesn't merit a lawsuit.
They could have default set to on and the first time it is about to switch to cellular pop up a warning with a few choices such as always use assist, never use assist, use it this time only, always warn before using assist.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking, too. How hard would it have been to help users make an informed decision?
For those saying it's the user's responsibility to understand all this stuff before they install...BS, that's the last thing Apple wants! You know what that would do to adoption rates if there was some sort of expectation that users would take the time to understand these things beforehand. No, what Apple wants is for users to blindly install whatever they tell them to install and as quickly as possible. The Apple walled garden is a benevolent dictatorship.
Mostly, that's probably good. Sometimes it's not.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I was thinking, too. How hard would it have been to help users make an informed decision?
Thanks. At least someone agrees with me. And, make matters worse, when wifi assist is using cellular data it doesn't remove the wifi icon, it just makes it grey. Assuming it will be a tiny bar since the signal is weak, the user might not notice right away.
Actually, their wifi more than likely acts up extremely often. I pay for over 100mbps and have the newest comcast router. It shows extremely high wifi speeds in tests, but across all my apple devices including my macbook ipad and iphone, there seems to be a lot of problems, freeze up on data loading and very slow loading on data.
Those speed tests are bogus because they don't test real world usage. Speed test just sends a large chunk of data, but in the real world a web page might make hundreds of individual http requests to more than a few different servers just to display a single web page. It is usually the requests, handshakes, ssl encryption, jQuery min, stylesheets, etc. that cause the delays, not a slow down of the overall throughput of your ISP.
I'm not out of touch. If someone doesn't know the difference between wifi and cellular data, they shouldn't be using a smartphone. There isn't much to explain. If you're not on wifi, you will obviously be using cellular data. How will it drive up the cost? When you start using up data, you get warnings from the phone companies. It's your responsibility to make sure you don't go over your monthly data allowance. Apple does explain the feature. It's well documented on Apple's website.
But I think the issue is when your someplace like you own home and you have wifi, there is an expectation that you are not using your cellular data. Sure, if I'm out driving around, or even far enough out in my back yard, I know my phone may lose the wifi signal and switch to cellular. But if I'm sitting on my sofa, I don't have that expectation.
I might start streaming movie, and again, if I then wander out to my yard I know I might lose the wifi signal. But if I'm sitting on my sofa streaming a movie and my internet service slows to a crawl I would not automatically expect my phone to switch to cellular data. I could have a perfectly fine wifi signal from my router, but interference or issues with my ISP could be causing the data throughput to die. Knowing that I'm sitting 10 feet from my Airport Extreme and that I had a strong signal when I started my movie, I would have no way of knowing, and to reason to suspect, that in the middle of my movie my data switched to cellular. You wouldn't even see the icon change on the screen because it's not displayed when playing video full-screen.
Apple was foolish to roll this out in this manner. But this class action lawsuit, like so many others, should be tossed out until there is at least some measure of evidence showing meaningful financial losses buy consumers (yes, I know that's part of the purpose of the lawsuit, but the bar should be set a little higher for filing one).
I might start streaming movie, and again, if I then wander out to my yard I know I might lose the wifi signal. But if I'm sitting on my sofa streaming a movie and my internet service slows to a crawl I would not automatically expect my phone to switch to cellular data. I could have a perfectly fine wifi signal from my router, but interference or issues with my ISP could be causing the data throughput to die.
I'm not positive but I don't think that is how it works. If you have a strong wifi signal, regardless of data throughput, I don't think it will switch to cellular.
Oh piss off. Read the Patch Notes.
Thanks. At least someone agrees with me. And, make matters worse, when wifi assist is using cellular data it doesn't remove the wifi icon, it just makes it grey. Assuming it will be a tiny bar since the signal is weak, the user might not notice right away.
That's not what Apple's support article says: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296
"When Wi-Fi Assist is activated, you'll see the cellular data icon in the status bar on your device."
Or does it grey out the icon AND show the cellular data icon?
I'm not positive but I don't think that is how it works. If you have a strong wifi signal, regardless of data throughput, I don't think it will switch to cellular.
That would be something, at least. Even before iOS 9 (which I haven't installed yet), if I was in a very weak wifi area I wouldn't have been surprised that my phone switches to cellular. It happens sometimes in the office as I'm quite a ways from the nearest wifi node. Its when I have a strong wifi signal that this would be a surprise.
Then I call AT&T to discuss removing the overage charges as a one time exception (it was around $115) and they said I had used a gig just in the five minute phone call with them.
Not sure what happened with iOS 9 and wifi assist but after that I had to turn it off just to be safe.
And as far as the common user, forget about it, they probably had never heard of this feature. I work in iOS tech support and I still let that happen. I think it should've been off by default with an option to enable it just like they did with iCloud Drive. But that's not really Apple Style is it?
Crap, I didn't even know about this - it was buried at the bottom and I never even saw it! No wonder I got hit with $60 in overage fees and my wife's at $30 - I have a few bad spots in the house. This is a great feature for those with unlimited plans - but for the vast majority - it's something we will never want - unless it has a pop up "wifi data spotty - switching to cellular data - OK / Not OK"
I'm tech savvy but who has time to go over every setting everything a new OS update is applied? We do hold Apple to a higher standard of "it just works" (within reason). That's why we pay more money - to avoid this kind of crap. This is a mature product and something like this should have been called out and not defaulted on and buried.
I don't like lawsuits - but this is spot on. Glad I didn't update my parent's phones yet!
I'm contacting Apple and AT&T about this!
That's not what Apple's support article says: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296
"When Wi-Fi Assist is activated, you'll see the cellular data icon in the status bar on your device."
Or does it grey out the icon AND show the cellular data icon?
I think you are right. I just tested it, but I'm still not sure how it differs from just switching over to cellular like it always did from an icon perspective.
I originally read about it here http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/technology/ios-9-wifi-assist/
I apparently have a really strong wifi signal, I had to walk about 50 meters down the driveway and out of line of sight to get out of wifi range and it did remove the wifi icon and replace it with the cellular. Surprisingly, I had to walk back towards the wifi router to within maybe 5 meters before it switched back to show 3 bars signal strength.
the wifi signal is weak. all i see is either wifi or lte. we were at the dog park today, and i was watching tv on my iPhone, while being connected to wifi and i kept going back to the spring board and checking to make sure my data wasn't being used. according to apple, sling tv and other third party apps aren't allowed to use wifi assist.