People aren't becoming "stupider". At all. The general public doesn't give a damn (and never has) about technology unless it somehow improves their lives without their having to do anything for it — VCRs did wonders for people, but only a tiny fraction ever programmed them until integrated EPG and auto-searching made it easy (the rest were "12-o'clock-blinkers").
This stuff has gone mainstream. It is no longer the tiny tech elite using it, but everybody. That doesn't change people. Nobody will ever read manuals. (That's the hyperbolic argumentative "nobody".)
As for using anything with more than one button on it: Take a look at the front of that iPhone, or iPad. Notice anything? Yeah?
Exactly.
For some reason I anticipated you'd make the reference to the Home-Button .
And for sure I follow the VCR-argument. Apart from that:
The pont is: In the past (long, long time ago) a higher intelligence meant a higher probability for survival. Today it is almost opposite. Tech is pampering the less intelligent (maybe involuntarily through the stuff-just-works). And intelligence is also connected to knowledge, where there are sufficient studies showing the the level of knowledge is rapidly declining throughout the classical first world countries. The worst is, people don't care (as well the hyperbolic "people" ;-) ).
I'm not saying tech should be hard to use and complicated and for nerds only. Opposite. However, you yourself gave the best argument that people indulge in being giorersponsible by not reading the effing manuals and later complaining that stuff behaves differently than they, uhm, "thought".
Since this feature is new and Apple has enabled most new features by default, I am clearly referring to the feature itself. As I stated earlier in the thread, this is a feature I've been wanting for many years, have talked about on AI for many years, and even suggested to Apple. I also stated that they should have been more forthcoming about the feature, suggested a couple ways in which they could have made it better known, and even gave a post script of another, more troubling issue I find with how they list the Apple Watch's connection to the iPhone as simply being "paired" by a typical BT accessory.
It is a class action and the $5M "burned through" is likely an estimate of usage by the entire "class"
its a feature that epitomises feature creep to me. Engineers can do it, some power users might love it, but it's of little or negative benefit to the average iPhone user.
The reason why the toggle is at the end of a huge list is because every app that could ever use cellular data is listed before the listing for the Apple Assistant with a yes/no toggle. If you turn the toggle off for any listed app cellular won't be dispensed for that app no matter how you configure the Apple Assistant. All that Apple assistant does is manage the transitions from wifi to cellular for those application YOU HAVE GIVEN EXPRESS PERMISSION TO USE CELLULAR.
I have YouTube set to not use cellular. If I'm watching YouTube and leave a wifi area the transmission will stop with a message reminding me that YouTube does not have permission to use cellular. This is how the iPhone has worked even before Apple Assistant.
Now supposed I'm using Maps, an application I've given permission to use cellular. If I plan a trip inside my home and "start" I will be able to pass from wifi to cellular gracefully thanks to the Apple Assistant.
If you really want to ensure that only wifi will be used then go to the FIRST item on that long list and turn off cellular data. It won't matter how the Apple assistant was set.
And of course, for those complaining about the long list, get rid of your useless applications that can use cellular and the list will get shorter. :-)
I'm not saying tech should be hard to use and complicated and for nerds only. Opposite. However, you yourself gave the best argument that people indulge in being giorersponsible by not reading the effing manuals and later complaining that stuff behaves differently than they, uhm, "thought".
Apple doesn't even include a manual with their products anymore. Why? Because they design their products to be "intuitive" to the user. It's one of their primary directives. If they have to include a manual to get the customer up an running, then they've failed their mission.this has been true since at least the introduction of the Macintosh. Yes there are manuals online, but the average consumer doesn't know this, nor do they feel compelled to go looking for it if the product essentially "just works" without it. They are more likely to learn about the product through a "tips" blog than any actual technical documents. Heck even Apple "geniuses" often know less about a given product than I do.
Now you may say this is the fault of the consumer, but Apple is encouraging this behavior, no? So who is to blame if Apple introduces a feature with potentially negative repercussions and fails to get the word out? They make a big deal out of marketing and promoting that the device can do the thing, and all the positive reasons why someone would want it, but no mention of what considerations the consumer might want to give before jumping into it, or how using it might negatively impact them. It's a little lopsided, no?
In my early twenties I coined the phrase 'CLUB 95' meaning the 95% of the population that lacks common scense, is stupid to various degrees etc., now approaching 70 and reading Apple Insider over the years I realise I got the percentage wrong. It was too low! If folks fail to read the synopsis before upgrading, or read Apple's upgrade details before they give the go-ahead to upgrade and so on then it is their problem. As other posts have pointed out, this is about their stupidity being used to leverage money from someone. Quite honestly it makes the rest of us look positively brilliant!
But the rub of your 'read the synopsis' entreaty is that if the feature were turned off by default, it could easily be enabled by all those clever people who did as you suggest. There would be no negative financial consequences for the feature to be off by default but there potentially are for considerable numbers of people if it's on by default. It seems to me the intelligent option would have been to have the former be the default.
its a feature that epitomises feature creep to me. Engineers can do it, some power users might love it, but it's of little or negative benefit to the average iPhone user.
Wouldnt have happened etc etc
OMG, this is in no way feature creep. This is about a better user experience. I live in a downtown area so I often walk to places. It's very annoying to have to manually disable WiFi as I'm walking down the sidewalk so I can get a cellular internet connection because the WiFi connection is still active even though it's too far away and with too many obstacles to all any data through. If you consider walking on a sidewalk away from your home a "power user" move, then I guess I'm a power user.
The reason why the toggle is at the end of a huge list is because every app that could ever use cellular data is listed before the listing for the Apple Assistant with a yes/no toggle. If you turn the toggle off for any listed app cellular won't be dispensed for that app no matter how you configure the Apple Assistant. All that Apple assistant does is manage the transitions from wifi to cellular for those application YOU HAVE GIVEN EXPRESS PERMISSION TO USE CELLULAR.
I have YouTube set to not use cellular. If I'm watching YouTube and leave a wifi area the transmission will stop with a message reminding me that YouTube does not have permission to use cellular. This is how the iPhone has worked even before Apple Assistant.
Now supposed I'm using Maps, an application I've given permission to use cellular. If I plan a trip inside my home and "start" I will be able to pass from wifi to cellular gracefully thanks to the Apple Assistant.
If you really want to ensure that only wifi will be used then go to the FIRST item on that long list and turn off cellular data. It won't matter how the Apple assistant was set.
And of course, for those complaining about the long list, get rid of your useless applications that can use cellular and the list will get shorter. :-)
This is way past the "it just works" philosophy that Apple fans used to trumpet. Going into that list is a power user act. ( Which isn't to say i don't use it ).
OMG, this is in no way feature creep. This is about a better user experience. I live in a downtown area so I often walk to places. It's very annoying to have to manually disable WiFi as I'm walking down the sidewalk so I can get a cellular internet connection because the WiFi connection is still active even though it's too far away and with too many obstacles to all any data through. If you consider walking on a sidewalk away from your home a "power user" move, then I guess I'm a power user.
I don't think turning off wifi is a power user experience. It's there in the control panel. Going to settings to edit your preferred apps to change their individual cellular data settings (as the previous poster opined) so as not to eat into their their data plans is.
The problem is when some user has weak wifi in part of their house. In the old days were the signal available, no matter how weak, you stayed on wifi. Now the heuristic seems to be that if your 3G or 4G connection is stronger the wifi will be dropped even with an available signal. In a world of infinite data plans that would make sense. In this world it doesn't.
And users shouldnt really have to depend on the wifi symbol in the top left, which isn't there all the time anyway, particularly in iOS 9 where it's often a back button. Or the data consuming app could be full screen. The potential hazards outweigh the advantages. Which isn't to say some people shouldnt have it.
Gotta blame Apple here. Companies do this kind of crap all the time by making something opt-out instead of opt-in. They should have turned the feature off by default and allowed the user to activate by choice. No matter how you look at it people are incredibly stupid and would have been upset either way. And I can see the data usage argument easily if a user has crappy Wi-Fi in parts of their home and doesn’t realize they are using cellular data watching that movie. The same thing goes for the Apple Music trial period. Instead of billing subscribers if they don’t opt-out of renewal Apple should have made opt-in the requirement. If you want to keep Apple Music then you have to DO something to keep it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a similar lawsuit coming from Apple Music users who got billed but didn’t want to renew. And Apple made it incredibly unclear what a user had to do to NOT renew.
You gotta blame users, such as yourself, that don't read or claim they shouldn't have to, as a way to absolve them of any responsibility or culpability.
Your first point on movies playing...from Apple's support page:
Wi-Fi Assist will not automatically switch to cellular if you're data roaming.
Wi-Fi Assist only works when you have apps running in the foreground and doesn't activate with background downloading of content.
Wi-Fi Assist doesn’t activate with some third-party apps that stream audio or video, or download attachments, like an email app, as they might use large amounts of data.
As for Apple making it "unclear" to you how to not-renew, since you didn't read up on WiFi Assist you may have missed this little nugget in the confirmation email you were sent when you joined up for the three months free.
"The subscription period will automatically renew unless you turn it off no later than 24 hours before the end of the current period. To cancel auto-renewal or manage your subscriptions, click below and sign in."
Seems pretty simple! You click a link. Nothing unclear or nefarious.
I don't think turning off wifi is a power user experience. It's there in the control panel. Going to settings to edit your preferred apps to change their individual cellular data settings (as the previous poster opined) so as not to eat into their their data plans is.
The problem is when some user has weak wifi in part of their house. In the old days were the signal available, no matter how weak, you stayed on wifi. Now the heuristic seems to be that if your 3G or 4G connection is stronger the wifi will be dropped even with an available signal. In a world of infinite data plans that would make sense. In this world it doesn't.
And users shouldnt really have to depend on the wifi symbol in the top left, which isn't there all the time anyway, particularly in iOS 9 where it's often a back button. Or the data consuming app could be full screen. The potential hazards outweigh the advantages. Which isn't to say some people shouldnt have it.
It's not based on "what's stronger". It's based on whether the WiFi too weak to be useful. WiFi has always taken precedence.
Now the question is whether the setting was put at the very bottom of the list because Apple engineers failed to consider how many apps people could install, or was it done on purpose to make the setting more difficult to find?
Did I say you HAD TO GO into that list? Whenever you install a new app it asks you explicitly whether it can use cellular. I didn't know only power users could say Yes or No to a pop-up window. Maybe for some litigious people apple SHOULD over-engineer. They should design a special button called, "Ask me for permission to do anything the phone is about to do" mode. Or better yet, "Except for phone functions change every toggle in the system to 'No' " mode! LOL
Apple doesn't even include a manual with their products anymore. Why? Because they design their products to be "intuitive" to the user. It's one of their primary directives. If they have to include a manual to get the customer up an running, then they've failed their mission.this has been true since at least the introduction of the Macintosh. Yes there are manuals online, but the average consumer doesn't know this, nor do they feel compelled to go looking for it if the product essentially "just works" without it. They are more likely to learn about the product through a "tips" blog than any actual technical documents. Heck even Apple "geniuses" often know less about a given product than I do.
Now you may say this is the fault of the consumer, but Apple is encouraging this behavior, no? So who is to blame if Apple introduces a feature with potentially negative repercussions and fails to get the word out? They make a big deal out of marketing and promoting that the device can do the thing, and all the positive reasons why someone would want it, but no mention of what considerations the consumer might want to give before jumping into it, or how using it might negatively impact them. It's a little lopsided, no?
I have this a thought and came to the conclusion that if indeed Apple did not "get the word out" then that leaves them with some responsibility.
I could not agree more... If wifi is not working properly then I would like to know before using cell data. Apple made a mistake turning this feature on by default. I have been telling anyone who is not on unlimited plan to turn it off.
Heaven forbid they try to make the user experience smoother. This feature woukd only kick in in situatiions where your wifi connection is so poor that you would find yourself unable to do much online otherwise. Then you would likely be complaining about not being able to load web paeges, etc.
Your attitude is one of complete lack of prrsonal responsibility. Take the damn time to educate yourself to the features of a product that you are using, as opposed to expecting them to dumb down products to meet te inteligence level of the least common denominator. I dont want them to remove or never have benificial technology because some users just dont want to learn what they are doing.
I'm glad that I'm on Consumer Cellular which warns you when they predict you will be over your monthly limit and let you move up and down plans without charging a change fee.
The only place where I have an issue with Wifi signal and 4G would kick in is when I am in a particular corner of one bedroom of my home. I've always known the 'cold spot' and Wifi Assist has certainly worked at that location. I thank Apple for giving us the choice and scorn the plaintiff for their arrogance and incompetence. Know your own Wifi network and adapt accordingly. The world should not need to feed you once you are of an adult age.
Heaven forbid they try to make the user experience smoother. This feature woukd only kick in in situatiions where your wifi connection is so poor that you would find yourself unable to do much online otherwise. Then you would likely be complaining about not being able to load web paeges, etc.
Your attitude is one of complete lack of prrsonal responsibility. Take the damn time to educate yourself to the features of a product that you are using, as opposed to expecting them to dumb down products to meet te inteligence level of the least common denominator. I dont want them to remove or never have benificial technology because some users just dont want to learn what they are doing.
The blame the consumer and the idea that people should know the intricacies of every setting in an OS is an attitude better suited to Android users. Apple should, by default, choose the best option for average users so it "just works".
Apple did make a mistake and apparently did try to advise folks, but I just learned about it via AI (thank you AI), not Apple. My cellular provider is TING and you pay for what you use, nothing more (fyi: saving about 50% from T-mobile). No unlimited data: our apple extreme provides excellent wifi through out our home, hence, we didn't fall into that trap. Other's clearly did---and the cost could be significant if they don't have unlimited data plans. But a Class Action law suit? How do you identify and fairly reimburse everyone effected?
Comments
People aren't becoming "stupider". At all. The general public doesn't give a damn (and never has) about technology unless it somehow improves their lives without their having to do anything for it — VCRs did wonders for people, but only a tiny fraction ever programmed them until integrated EPG and auto-searching made it easy (the rest were "12-o'clock-blinkers").
This stuff has gone mainstream. It is no longer the tiny tech elite using it, but everybody. That doesn't change people. Nobody will ever read manuals. (That's the hyperbolic argumentative "nobody".)
As for using anything with more than one button on it: Take a look at the front of that iPhone, or iPad. Notice anything? Yeah?
Exactly.
For some reason I anticipated you'd make the reference to the Home-Button
And for sure I follow the VCR-argument. Apart from that:
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/people-getting-dumber-human-intelligence-victoria-era_n_3293846.html
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html
I found more articles, but most are in German.
The pont is: In the past (long, long time ago) a higher intelligence meant a higher probability for survival. Today it is almost opposite. Tech is pampering the less intelligent (maybe involuntarily through the stuff-just-works). And intelligence is also connected to knowledge, where there are sufficient studies showing the the level of knowledge is rapidly declining throughout the classical first world countries. The worst is, people don't care (as well the hyperbolic "people" ;-) ).
I'm not saying tech should be hard to use and complicated and for nerds only. Opposite. However, you yourself gave the best argument that people indulge in being giorersponsible by not reading the effing manuals and later complaining that stuff behaves differently than they, uhm, "thought".
its a feature that epitomises feature creep to me. Engineers can do it, some power users might love it, but it's of little or negative benefit to the average iPhone user.
Wouldnt have happened etc etc
The reason why the toggle is at the end of a huge list is because every app that could ever use cellular data is listed before the listing for the Apple Assistant with a yes/no toggle. If you turn the toggle off for any listed app cellular won't be dispensed for that app no matter how you configure the Apple Assistant. All that Apple assistant does is manage the transitions from wifi to cellular for those application YOU HAVE GIVEN EXPRESS PERMISSION TO USE CELLULAR.
I have YouTube set to not use cellular. If I'm watching YouTube and leave a wifi area the transmission will stop with a message reminding me that YouTube does not have permission to use cellular. This is how the iPhone has worked even before Apple Assistant.
Now supposed I'm using Maps, an application I've given permission to use cellular. If I plan a trip inside my home and "start" I will be able to pass from wifi to cellular gracefully thanks to the Apple Assistant.
If you really want to ensure that only wifi will be used then go to the FIRST item on that long list and turn off cellular data. It won't matter how the Apple assistant was set.
And of course, for those complaining about the long list, get rid of your useless applications that can use cellular and the list will get shorter. :-)
Now you may say this is the fault of the consumer, but Apple is encouraging this behavior, no? So who is to blame if Apple introduces a feature with potentially negative repercussions and fails to get the word out? They make a big deal out of marketing and promoting that the device can do the thing, and all the positive reasons why someone would want it, but no mention of what considerations the consumer might want to give before jumping into it, or how using it might negatively impact them. It's a little lopsided, no?
In my early twenties I coined the phrase 'CLUB 95' meaning the 95% of the population that lacks common scense, is stupid to various degrees etc., now approaching 70 and reading Apple Insider over the years I realise I got the percentage wrong. It was too low! If folks fail to read the synopsis before upgrading, or read Apple's upgrade details before they give the go-ahead to upgrade and so on then it is their problem. As other posts have pointed out, this is about their stupidity being used to leverage money from someone. Quite honestly it makes the rest of us look positively brilliant!
But the rub of your 'read the synopsis' entreaty is that if the feature were turned off by default, it could easily be enabled by all those clever people who did as you suggest. There would be no negative financial consequences for the feature to be off by default but there potentially are for considerable numbers of people if it's on by default. It seems to me the intelligent option would have been to have the former be the default.
OMG, this is in no way feature creep. This is about a better user experience. I live in a downtown area so I often walk to places. It's very annoying to have to manually disable WiFi as I'm walking down the sidewalk so I can get a cellular internet connection because the WiFi connection is still active even though it's too far away and with too many obstacles to all any data through. If you consider walking on a sidewalk away from your home a "power user" move, then I guess I'm a power user.
This is way past the "it just works" philosophy that Apple fans used to trumpet. Going into that list is a power user act. ( Which isn't to say i don't use it ).
I don't think turning off wifi is a power user experience. It's there in the control panel. Going to settings to edit your preferred apps to change their individual cellular data settings (as the previous poster opined) so as not to eat into their their data plans is.
The problem is when some user has weak wifi in part of their house. In the old days were the signal available, no matter how weak, you stayed on wifi. Now the heuristic seems to be that if your 3G or 4G connection is stronger the wifi will be dropped even with an available signal. In a world of infinite data plans that would make sense. In this world it doesn't.
And users shouldnt really have to depend on the wifi symbol in the top left, which isn't there all the time anyway, particularly in iOS 9 where it's often a back button. Or the data consuming app could be full screen. The potential hazards outweigh the advantages. Which isn't to say some people shouldnt have it.
Gotta blame Apple here. Companies do this kind of crap all the time by making something opt-out instead of opt-in. They should have turned the feature off by default and allowed the user to activate by choice. No matter how you look at it people are incredibly stupid and would have been upset either way. And I can see the data usage argument easily if a user has crappy Wi-Fi in parts of their home and doesn’t realize they are using cellular data watching that movie. The same thing goes for the Apple Music trial period. Instead of billing subscribers if they don’t opt-out of renewal Apple should have made opt-in the requirement. If you want to keep Apple Music then you have to DO something to keep it. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a similar lawsuit coming from Apple Music users who got billed but didn’t want to renew. And Apple made it incredibly unclear what a user had to do to NOT renew.
You gotta blame users, such as yourself, that don't read or claim they shouldn't have to, as a way to absolve them of any responsibility or culpability.
Your first point on movies playing...from Apple's support page:
As for Apple making it "unclear" to you how to not-renew, since you didn't read up on WiFi Assist you may have missed this little nugget in the confirmation email you were sent when you joined up for the three months free.
"The subscription period will automatically renew unless you turn it off no later than 24 hours before the end of the current period. To cancel auto-renewal or manage your subscriptions, click below and sign in."
Seems pretty simple! You click a link. Nothing unclear or nefarious.
Carry on!
It's not based on "what's stronger". It's based on whether the WiFi too weak to be useful. WiFi has always taken precedence.
Now the question is whether the setting was put at the very bottom of the list because Apple engineers failed to consider how many apps people could install, or was it done on purpose to make the setting more difficult to find?
Why would you assume or think that?
Regards with a little sarcasm...
That's actually not a quote of mine.
I have this a thought and came to the conclusion that if indeed Apple did not "get the word out" then that leaves them with some responsibility.
Heaven forbid they try to make the user experience smoother. This feature woukd only kick in in situatiions where your wifi connection is so poor that you would find yourself unable to do much online otherwise. Then you would likely be complaining about not being able to load web paeges, etc.
Your attitude is one of complete lack of prrsonal responsibility. Take the damn time to educate yourself to the features of a product that you are using, as opposed to expecting them to dumb down products to meet te inteligence level of the least common denominator. I dont want them to remove or never have benificial technology because some users just dont want to learn what they are doing.
The blame the consumer and the idea that people should know the intricacies of every setting in an OS is an attitude better suited to Android users. Apple should, by default, choose the best option for average users so it "just works".