Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 342 posts

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#91

Post by jonahx »

morganvachon wrote: post #74
jonahx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. It is in an attempt to resolve the real loss of money... Naked apologism. So unthoughtful, and delivered with such a righteous tone. If this was their intention, they could have implemented the feature honestly, informing users about what was happening, and offering a clear choice, such as an immediate popup, between "turn off for this location" and "turn off completely." That would have been fine. But the exis…

"offering the option to actually turn the services off." I'm not getting into the rest of your discussion, but I think you completely missed that you can indeed actually turn them off via 3D touch. Even on non-3D touch devices like the iPad mini, you can get to the "actually off" toggles by long-pressing the icons. Sure, it's somewhat of an extra step, but it's misleading to claim that the option doesn't exist when i…

I understood. What I meant by "option" in that context (and I updated the post to clarify this) is something like a popup when I turn off my WiFi in the control center that says: "Your wifi will automatically turn back on when you leave this location," followed by an "Ok" button and a "Do not turn it back on" button.

When the user is presented with the current control center button that turns the WiFi symbol from blue to gray, the user has a reasonable expectation (actually, I'd say more than that in this case) that it means "off." That's the point of the original article. As a completely general rule, if your UI is does something that may reasonably be misinterpreted, it is your responsibility to inform the user of that. You could take the principle almost as a definition of good usability.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#92

Post by neotek »

trowawee wrote: post #42

This has been easily the most obnoxious change of iOS 11. It is super annoying to have to dismiss the list of available WiFi networks every single time I open my phone while walking around the city, no matter how many times I turn my WiFi off.

So why not just actually turn your wifi off? They didn't remove your ability to do so, just changed the way you do it.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#93

Post by Nition »

djrogers wrote: post #86
Nition wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having WiFi greatly increases the battery drain on my iPhone 5C, so I always turn it off when I'm not using it. I'm not using the phone all the time so there are long periods where it doesn't need to be on, but I still want to receive messages etc (and hence can't use Airplane mode). Edit: I originally said that having wifi on "at least doubles" the power drain on my phone but since I haven't actually taken hard stat…

The WiFi radio uses less power than the LTE one, so if you’re in range of WiFi you save battery by leaving it on.

I don't have a data plan so I always have mobile data off.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#94

Post by vacri »

freehunter wrote: post #59
rileytg wrote: post #7

my airpods disconnect when i turn bluetooth off from control center. very weird that’s not an exception...

So Bluetooth devices disconnect when you hit the button to disconnect Bluetooth devices?

From The Fine Article:

> Location Services is still enabled, Apple devices (like Apple Watch and Pencil) stay connected, and services such as Handoff and Instant Hotspot stay on.

> The only way to turn off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios...

The GP is right that it's weird that Apple Watch stays connected when you ask for a disconnect, but Apple Earbuds do not.

TFA wasn't only talking about the wifi radio.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#95

Post by colejohnson66 »

trowawee wrote: post #42

This has been easily the most obnoxious change of iOS 11. It is super annoying to have to dismiss the list of available WiFi networks every single time I open my phone while walking around the city, no matter how many times I turn my WiFi off.

Turn off “Ask to join networks”

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#96

Post by nkristoffersen »

egypturnash wrote: post #54
MBCook wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS communicated. If you just pull up control center and tap the button is says “Disconnected from ‘WiFiNetwork’”. If you expand the panel with 3D Touch or a long press under the WiFi icon it either says WiFiName or Not Connected. On the other hand the cellular radio says Off if you toggle it. This isn’t completely hidden. The information is there. And I agree with the other posters that this is a far better settin…

I have a phone that is 3D Touch capable and I never use 3D Touch at all . In fact I mostly avoid using it; it's Those Useless Options That Sometimes Pop Up If I Press Too hard On A Thing. It's on par with OSX's "some menu items change if you hold down alt while they're open" behavior. Aggressively obscured.

You're missing out. 3D Touch is pretty powerful and provides access to more than "Useless Options" now.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#97

Post by neotek »

clouddrover wrote: post #53
wildmusings wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way I've run every smartphone I've owned is to turn off mobile data, WiFi, and Bluetooth and only turn them on as and when I need them Okay, but you have to accept that this is a ridiculously small minority use case.

I don't accept that. I think it's a common sense approach. I don't want my phone connecting to things without my involvement. If the icons were consistent and there was a setting to toggle the behaviour of Control Centre then it would be a non-issue. I could set it up the way I want and it would work as it used to in iOS 10. But the icons are inconsistent and, as far as I know, there's no such setting.

You don't accept it on what possible grounds? Do you really think the majority of iOS users, or even a sizeable minority, use their phones in the way you do?

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#98

Post by [deleted] »

Terretta wrote: post #6

> In an attempt to keep you connected to Apple devices and services, iOS 11 compromises users' security. No. It is in an attempt to resolve the real loss of money experienced by everyday users who turn off WiFi when it’s flakey and then forget to turn it back on, costing them cash on their cellular data plan. (And the very real frustration when things don’t work they expect to work, and they don’t know why.) Meanwhil…

[deleted]

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#99

Post by ianamartin »

wildmusings wrote: post #46
clouddrover wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> resolve the real loss of money experienced by everyday users who turn off WiFi The way I've run every smartphone I've owned is to turn off mobile data, WiFi, and Bluetooth and only turn them on as and when I need them. I prefer it to work that way. The way this works in iOS 11 is now inconsistent and confusing. I can turn mobile data on and off via Control Centre. But, while I can turn WiFi on in Control Centre, I…

> The way I've run every smartphone I've owned is to turn off mobile data, WiFi, and Bluetooth and only turn them on as and when I need them Okay, but you have to accept that this is a ridiculously small minority use case.

Wow. This exchange is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen on HN.

I'm kind of fascinated to hear from people who spend money on things only to disable all of the things that make the thing worth spending money on.

If someone tried to tell me that the default behavior of a product should be to not function, I think I would go through the roof.

Re: iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

#100

Post by IBM »

userbinator wrote: post #22

In other words, the WiFi actually has 3 states: Off, Idle/disassociated/disconnected, and Connected/Associated. Most people have experienced all 3 states, but it seems Apple is under the impression that users are too stupid to know the difference between them... The Wi-Fi will turn back full-on if you drive or walk to a new location. And both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will turn back on at 5:00 AM. This is not clearly expla…

I just have to laugh at this entire thread. This is a clear example of Apple making a positive UX change for the vast majority of iOS users and it's completely invisible. Apple doesn't expect any user to "memorize" how this works. The support document is there to explain it to anyone who wants to know.

In exchange for triggering the OCD of some techies, Apple is going to save 99% of their customers time they would have spent troubleshooting why their Apple Watch or AirDrop or Handoff never work. And they'll probably save them money on their data bills as well.

This is a classic "Apple knows best" move and the only people who have a problem with it are the people who have always had a problem with Apple's SOP.

Post reply on HN