8 ms·

This is actually fantastic, I am really happy about this. Two main reasons (1) If you disable Wi-Fi its re-enabled when you goto a new location. Very often I

This is actually fantastic, I am really happy about this. Two main reasons (1) If you disable Wi-Fi its re-enabled when you goto a new location. Very often I disable wifi to temporarily get off a bad network in an area, and then curse when I get home and stream a 1GB video over 3G (2) Much more user friendly for initiated actions (3) You can still fully disable it by going into settings, but the quick-off is more like you expect. Great work, Apple.

michaelmrose 9y ago
I make it forget bad networks so it wont connect to them by default your workflow is poor.
- cstejerean 9y ago
  Sometimes the bad network is my network, for example when I’m standing in my driveway. It’s still close enough to pick up my wifi but it doesn’t actually load anything. Or my office Wi-Fi once I get down to the lobby, but before I leave the building. Good for you if this never happens, but it’s a real problem.
  - matt-attack 9y ago
    I agree that is a problem. But why do we accept that human intervention (control center => disable WiFi) is the correct step to resolve the standing-on-your-driveway problem. Should iOS11 just figure out how to automatically disconnect from WiFi signals that aren’t actually supporting data throughput? Why are you accepting that there can be a concept of “picking up WiFi” but at the same time “doesn’t load anything”? That state is fundamentally flawed and shouldn’t even exist.
    - jakobegger 9y ago
      iPhones have a setting named "Wifi Assist" where the phone automatically uses the cellular modem when the internet over Wifi doesn't work. You should be able to connect to "broken" Wifi networks because you might actually want to access devices on the wifi network. For example, I want to be able to print things (my printer is on my home network) even if the cable modem is down. So my phone should just use cellular modem for internet, but still connect to the "broken" wifi.
- gruez 9y ago
  your post needs some punctuations I make it forget bad networks, so it wont connect to them by default. your workflow is poor.
  - michaelmrose 9y ago
    You actually forgot to capitalize "your" after the period but mentioning it isn't terribly useful because the intent is clear. This is also true of my original post. Posts consisting solely of grammar advice where there was no chance of miscommunication aren't helpful and just adds noise. It appears as if the intent is to project ones own superiority instead of educating.
- lloeki 9y ago
  You can tell iOS to not connect automatically to a known network by disabling auto-join for that SSID. I do this so that it doesn't connect to "Free WiFi Secure", which can not be forgotten since it comes from my mobile operator's SIM (authenticates with EAP-SIM).
gcb0 9y ago
So i guess you liked Microsoft Clippy too? Instead of fixing the UI to make you empowered, it will decide what is better for you? great!
- mcgarnagle 9y ago
  Bonzi Buddy was even better, it's the original "clippy that doesn't go away"
  - flukus 9y ago
    It's amazing how much functionality Bonzi Buddy had on a 486 that we apparently need cloud super-computing (google now, amazon echo, siri, etc) for now.
    - makapuf 9y ago
      I personally like Vigor http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/ http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
- gervase 9y ago
  Sarcasm aside, I hated this feature until I used it a few weeks, but now I'm a fan. I would argue that this UI is empowering users, in the sense that it allows them to do something that they couldn't before (in contrast to Clippy, who usually suggested things you already knew how to do). For example, on a daily basis, I usually spend my time in one of 4 places: - A location with good WiFi and good LTE reception (expectation: all services on) - A location with bad WiFi and good LTE reception (expectation: WiFi off) - A location with excellent WiFi and atrocious LTE reception (expectation: cellular off) - A location with bad WiFi and zero LTE reception (expectation: all off) Previously, I had to manually toggle WiFi, cellular, or airplane mode on or off in these various locations, nearly always forgetting to change it again later. This is mainly a problem with turning things off - if I'm in airplane mode, I might not notice that I'm incommunicado for an hour or more if I'm engrossed in a task, whereas leaving everything on when I'm in the metaphorical dungeon will only cost me a few % of battery, at most. However, by defaulting services to on after I move locations, my phone reverts to a communication device at the expense of a marginal amount of battery life. Think of it as a 4-square: 1) services on, actively using; 2) services off, actively using; 3) services on, not using; 4) services off, not using. In cases 1 & 2, I'm actively using it and I don't care what it does as long as it functions (i.e. I can manually disconnect from shitty WiFi myself, so data will load again). In case 3, I lose some battery life for my inattention, but no big deal - I can still easily make it all day on a charge. In case 4, I'm SOL until I remember to turn them on again. This behavioral change in iOS 11 moves some of my time from case 4 to case 3, which is a tradeoff I am willing to make. I hope this helps to illustrate the alternative perspective to yours a bit more clearly.
protomyth 9y ago
> This is actually fantastic, I am really happy about this. This is not fantastic, my phone is lying to me. I was wondering what the bug was because I turned off Bluetooth and it kept turning back on every damn time I got near my car. I want it on when I want it on and not anytime else. Icons and OSes that lie to user make it tougher to understand what's going on. I expect the control center to tell the truth and do what I want. There is no indication that the settings and control center are different. This is a user hostile decision. Cruddy work, Apple... now I get to answer questions about this psychotic crud.
- ctpide 9y ago
  When you enable airplane mode, you can actually see WiFi and Bluetooth crossed out as opposed to grayed out. So there is a difference in UI, but I agree - this is not intuitive to the user.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Osmium 9y ago
  > my phone is lying to me. If you force touch the UI, it does say "Not Connected" when you hit the button, not "Disabled." I can understand the confusion, because they have re-used an old UI element for a new purpose, but there's no reason the button should mean "Disable Radio" rather than "Disconnect." And as cptide mentions, the button now has three states: blue for connected, grey for disconnected, grey with a line through for disabled. Once you know this, I think it makes a lot of sense. If you want the old behavior, it's still there in settings, where the on-off toggle will turn off the radio itself. Personally, I much prefer the new system (I far more often just want to disconnect from the current network/devices than disable it entirely), and think the new control center is much improved over the old one.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    > If you want the old behavior, it's still there in settings, where the on-off toggle will turn off the radio itself. Could a setting to revert the behavior not have been provided? Instead of forcing an entirely new behavior on existing users? Now I'm trying to figure out how to ensure my phone doesn't auto update to 11.
na85 9y ago
When I read comments like yours, I get excited to read the n-gate.com coverage of the article. I can see it now: >a hackernews decides to congratulate apple for being duplicitous
Joeri 9y ago
iOS can be configured to automatically switch to LTE if it detects you’re on a low quality wifi connection. No need to turn off wifi for that.
- Osmium 9y ago
  I think iOS needs to be a lot more aggressive with this, in both directions (switching because of poor LTE and because of poor WiFi). If it were better, I don't think I'd never actually need to touch the WiFi toggle.
- redditmigrant 9y ago
  The problem here is that a lot of people are on limited data plans. So if wifi is poor in one corner of my home, I dont want to accidentally chew up half my monthly data allowance.
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    This absolutely happened to me once, at work. Which was really funny, because I was downloading craploads of music specifically before I left the office so I wouldn't chew up my mobile data cap. I didn't know the "switch to 4G if the wifi is bad" option even existed, much less was enabled.
- lloeki 9y ago
  iOS won't detect when I'm on a good WiFi connection but its ADSL link has decent ping yet is much much slower (10Mbps/0.6Mbps) than what I would get with LTE (40~80Mbps both ways) at the same location. I'm on a 100GB plan so I could care less about data use, and I have FTTH (300Mbps/100Mbps+sub-10ms ping) at home so I want WiFi there but always forget to toggle it back on. This UI solves it for me, although I wished the 3D Touch UI would allow quick access to the third, disabled state.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
helloindia 9y ago
It's not fantastic for me. I'd like to off wifi from the control screen.
clouddrover 9y ago
> (3) You can still fully disable it by going into settings, but the quick-off is more like you expect. For me, I expect off to be off. What annoys me about this change is that the on\off behaviour is now asymmetric. If I turn off Wi-Fi in Settings, I can turn it back on via Control Centre but I now can't turn it off via Control Centre. My preference is always to leave Wi-Fi off, turn it on when I want to use it, and then turn it off when I'm finished. This change makes doing that slower and clumsier.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ I think for the majority of users this is a really insightful change that addresses one of the biggest use cases the switch had (temporarily disable WiFi to get away from a bad connection) and one of the biggest issues it had for that use case (it was easy to turn it off and waste large amounts of relatively expensive wireless data)
- jaclaz 9y ago
  >My preference is always to leave Wi-Fi off, turn it on when I want to use it, and then turn it off when I'm finished. This change makes doing that slower and clumsier. Right! But the good Apple developers believe that this way your experience will be somehow inferior: From the article: >For the best experience on your iOS device, try to keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    Wifi being off definitely reduces the performance of Location services. In my parking garage the car charger needs to be activated via an app, and it needs to detect your location as within 100ft of the charger. Without WiFi, my location accuracy shows up as almost +-1 mile and I can't turn it on. As soon as I turn on WiFi it instantly snaps to exit of the garage (probably from correlating detecting apartment wifi hotspots along with my car's hotspot and my location as I leave the garage)
    - 9y ago
kakarot 9y ago
When I turn off WiFi, I expect it to remain off and not just decide to turn back on whenever I find a new network. Any other behavior is dark UX. Ignoring the security implications, it has implications on battery life.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  That button is no longer for turning it off. They've changed the meaning of the button. I get that if you're used to the previous meaning it could be annoying, but it's not like it's actually saying one thing and doing another.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >They've changed the meaning of the button. It's also not the same button technically: they've redesigned the whole panel.
  - tradesmanhelix 9y ago
    Problem is that they never informed users that they’d changed this behavior. That button no longer does what it’s always done, which violates the Principle if Least Surprise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishm....
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      I imagine it will be documented in the iOS 11 changes - I mean, as I understand it, it hasn't been publicly released yet. There's a balance to be made between least surprise and the benefits of being able to evolve a design. (Another factor with any OS is there's a constant stream of new users coming to it for the first time)
      - tradesmanhelix 9y ago
        > I mean, as I understand it, it hasn't been publicly released yet. Not sure what you mean by this. iOS 11 was released on 09-19-2017, so not sure what you're saying is still awaiting a public release? Regarding your second point, definitely agreed. However, to me this seems almost beyond the scope of Least Surprise and more akin to the Windows 10 fiasco where clicking the red X close button actually accepted the update and installed Windows 10. [1] Bottom line: there are certain established UI conventions (i.e., an on/off button turns things on and off) that you really can't change without causing a lot of issues and user frustration. And if you do change them, please alert your users. Otherwise, it seems shady and is definitely a UX faux pas. [1] http://bgr.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-trick/ http://bgr.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-trick...
amigoingtodie 9y ago
I am glad we found the guy!

michaelmrose 9y ago

I make it forget bad networks so it wont connect to them by default your workflow is poor.

cstejerean 9y ago
Sometimes the bad network is my network, for example when I’m standing in my driveway. It’s still close enough to pick up my wifi but it doesn’t actually load anything. Or my office Wi-Fi once I get down to the lobby, but before I leave the building. Good for you if this never happens, but it’s a real problem.
- matt-attack 9y ago
  I agree that is a problem. But why do we accept that human intervention (control center => disable WiFi) is the correct step to resolve the standing-on-your-driveway problem. Should iOS11 just figure out how to automatically disconnect from WiFi signals that aren’t actually supporting data throughput? Why are you accepting that there can be a concept of “picking up WiFi” but at the same time “doesn’t load anything”? That state is fundamentally flawed and shouldn’t even exist.
  - jakobegger 9y ago
    iPhones have a setting named "Wifi Assist" where the phone automatically uses the cellular modem when the internet over Wifi doesn't work. You should be able to connect to "broken" Wifi networks because you might actually want to access devices on the wifi network. For example, I want to be able to print things (my printer is on my home network) even if the cable modem is down. So my phone should just use cellular modem for internet, but still connect to the "broken" wifi.
gruez 9y ago
your post needs some punctuations I make it forget bad networks, so it wont connect to them by default. your workflow is poor.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  You actually forgot to capitalize "your" after the period but mentioning it isn't terribly useful because the intent is clear. This is also true of my original post. Posts consisting solely of grammar advice where there was no chance of miscommunication aren't helpful and just adds noise. It appears as if the intent is to project ones own superiority instead of educating.
lloeki 9y ago
You can tell iOS to not connect automatically to a known network by disabling auto-join for that SSID. I do this so that it doesn't connect to "Free WiFi Secure", which can not be forgotten since it comes from my mobile operator's SIM (authenticates with EAP-SIM).

gcb0 9y ago

So i guess you liked Microsoft Clippy too? Instead of fixing the UI to make you empowered, it will decide what is better for you? great!

mcgarnagle 9y ago
Bonzi Buddy was even better, it's the original "clippy that doesn't go away"
- flukus 9y ago
  It's amazing how much functionality Bonzi Buddy had on a 486 that we apparently need cloud super-computing (google now, amazon echo, siri, etc) for now.
  - makapuf 9y ago
    I personally like Vigor http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/ http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
gervase 9y ago
Sarcasm aside, I hated this feature until I used it a few weeks, but now I'm a fan. I would argue that this UI is empowering users, in the sense that it allows them to do something that they couldn't before (in contrast to Clippy, who usually suggested things you already knew how to do). For example, on a daily basis, I usually spend my time in one of 4 places: - A location with good WiFi and good LTE reception (expectation: all services on) - A location with bad WiFi and good LTE reception (expectation: WiFi off) - A location with excellent WiFi and atrocious LTE reception (expectation: cellular off) - A location with bad WiFi and zero LTE reception (expectation: all off) Previously, I had to manually toggle WiFi, cellular, or airplane mode on or off in these various locations, nearly always forgetting to change it again later. This is mainly a problem with turning things off - if I'm in airplane mode, I might not notice that I'm incommunicado for an hour or more if I'm engrossed in a task, whereas leaving everything on when I'm in the metaphorical dungeon will only cost me a few % of battery, at most. However, by defaulting services to on after I move locations, my phone reverts to a communication device at the expense of a marginal amount of battery life. Think of it as a 4-square: 1) services on, actively using; 2) services off, actively using; 3) services on, not using; 4) services off, not using. In cases 1 & 2, I'm actively using it and I don't care what it does as long as it functions (i.e. I can manually disconnect from shitty WiFi myself, so data will load again). In case 3, I lose some battery life for my inattention, but no big deal - I can still easily make it all day on a charge. In case 4, I'm SOL until I remember to turn them on again. This behavioral change in iOS 11 moves some of my time from case 4 to case 3, which is a tradeoff I am willing to make. I hope this helps to illustrate the alternative perspective to yours a bit more clearly.

protomyth 9y ago

> This is actually fantastic, I am really happy about this. This is not fantastic, my phone is lying to me. I was wondering what the bug was because I turned off Bluetooth and it kept turning back on every damn time I got near my car. I want it on when I want it on and not anytime else. Icons and OSes that lie to user make it tougher to understand what's going on. I expect the control center to tell the truth and do what I want. There is no indication that the settings and control center are different. This is a user hostile decision. Cruddy work, Apple... now I get to answer questions about this psychotic crud.

ctpide 9y ago
When you enable airplane mode, you can actually see WiFi and Bluetooth crossed out as opposed to grayed out. So there is a difference in UI, but I agree - this is not intuitive to the user.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Osmium 9y ago
> my phone is lying to me. If you force touch the UI, it does say "Not Connected" when you hit the button, not "Disabled." I can understand the confusion, because they have re-used an old UI element for a new purpose, but there's no reason the button should mean "Disable Radio" rather than "Disconnect." And as cptide mentions, the button now has three states: blue for connected, grey for disconnected, grey with a line through for disabled. Once you know this, I think it makes a lot of sense. If you want the old behavior, it's still there in settings, where the on-off toggle will turn off the radio itself. Personally, I much prefer the new system (I far more often just want to disconnect from the current network/devices than disable it entirely), and think the new control center is much improved over the old one.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > If you want the old behavior, it's still there in settings, where the on-off toggle will turn off the radio itself. Could a setting to revert the behavior not have been provided? Instead of forcing an entirely new behavior on existing users? Now I'm trying to figure out how to ensure my phone doesn't auto update to 11.

na85 9y ago

When I read comments like yours, I get excited to read the n-gate.com coverage of the article. I can see it now: >a hackernews decides to congratulate apple for being duplicitous

Joeri 9y ago

iOS can be configured to automatically switch to LTE if it detects you’re on a low quality wifi connection. No need to turn off wifi for that.

Osmium 9y ago
I think iOS needs to be a lot more aggressive with this, in both directions (switching because of poor LTE and because of poor WiFi). If it were better, I don't think I'd never actually need to touch the WiFi toggle.
redditmigrant 9y ago
The problem here is that a lot of people are on limited data plans. So if wifi is poor in one corner of my home, I dont want to accidentally chew up half my monthly data allowance.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  This absolutely happened to me once, at work. Which was really funny, because I was downloading craploads of music specifically before I left the office so I wouldn't chew up my mobile data cap. I didn't know the "switch to 4G if the wifi is bad" option even existed, much less was enabled.
lloeki 9y ago
iOS won't detect when I'm on a good WiFi connection but its ADSL link has decent ping yet is much much slower (10Mbps/0.6Mbps) than what I would get with LTE (40~80Mbps both ways) at the same location. I'm on a 100GB plan so I could care less about data use, and I have FTTH (300Mbps/100Mbps+sub-10ms ping) at home so I want WiFi there but always forget to toggle it back on. This UI solves it for me, although I wished the 3D Touch UI would allow quick access to the third, disabled state.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
BinaryIdiot 9y ago

helloindia 9y ago

It's not fantastic for me. I'd like to off wifi from the control screen.

clouddrover 9y ago

> (3) You can still fully disable it by going into settings, but the quick-off is more like you expect. For me, I expect off to be off. What annoys me about this change is that the on\off behaviour is now asymmetric. If I turn off Wi-Fi in Settings, I can turn it back on via Control Centre but I now can't turn it off via Control Centre. My preference is always to leave Wi-Fi off, turn it on when I want to use it, and then turn it off when I'm finished. This change makes doing that slower and clumsier.

BoorishBears 9y ago
Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/ I think for the majority of users this is a really insightful change that addresses one of the biggest use cases the switch had (temporarily disable WiFi to get away from a bad connection) and one of the biggest issues it had for that use case (it was easy to turn it off and waste large amounts of relatively expensive wireless data)
jaclaz 9y ago
>My preference is always to leave Wi-Fi off, turn it on when I want to use it, and then turn it off when I'm finished. This change makes doing that slower and clumsier. Right! But the good Apple developers believe that this way your experience will be somehow inferior: From the article: >For the best experience on your iOS device, try to keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  Wifi being off definitely reduces the performance of Location services. In my parking garage the car charger needs to be activated via an app, and it needs to detect your location as within 100ft of the charger. Without WiFi, my location accuracy shows up as almost +-1 mile and I can't turn it on. As soon as I turn on WiFi it instantly snaps to exit of the garage (probably from correlating detecting apartment wifi hotspots along with my car's hotspot and my location as I leave the garage)
  - 9y ago

kakarot 9y ago

When I turn off WiFi, I expect it to remain off and not just decide to turn back on whenever I find a new network. Any other behavior is dark UX. Ignoring the security implications, it has implications on battery life.

jamesrcole 9y ago
That button is no longer for turning it off. They've changed the meaning of the button. I get that if you're used to the previous meaning it could be annoying, but it's not like it's actually saying one thing and doing another.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >They've changed the meaning of the button. It's also not the same button technically: they've redesigned the whole panel.
- tradesmanhelix 9y ago
  Problem is that they never informed users that they’d changed this behavior. That button no longer does what it’s always done, which violates the Principle if Least Surprise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishm....
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    I imagine it will be documented in the iOS 11 changes - I mean, as I understand it, it hasn't been publicly released yet. There's a balance to be made between least surprise and the benefits of being able to evolve a design. (Another factor with any OS is there's a constant stream of new users coming to it for the first time)
    - tradesmanhelix 9y ago
      > I mean, as I understand it, it hasn't been publicly released yet. Not sure what you mean by this. iOS 11 was released on 09-19-2017, so not sure what you're saying is still awaiting a public release? Regarding your second point, definitely agreed. However, to me this seems almost beyond the scope of Least Surprise and more akin to the Windows 10 fiasco where clicking the red X close button actually accepted the update and installed Windows 10. [1] Bottom line: there are certain established UI conventions (i.e., an on/off button turns things on and off) that you really can't change without causing a lot of issues and user frustration. And if you do change them, please alert your users. Otherwise, it seems shady and is definitely a UX faux pas. [1] http://bgr.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-trick/ http://bgr.com/2016/05/25/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-trick...

amigoingtodie 9y ago

I am glad we found the guy!