Having recently switched to iPhone I have been very surprised at finding my wifi and Bluetooth automatically turning on. There could be a better way, but I had to create a shortcut to disable connectivity until I manually turn it back on
As much as I prefer iOS to Android, this is my biggest pet peave. They way they are so aggressive with bluetooth and wifi is annoying. I hate that they don't even go through DHCP most of the time and just assume that last known IP is still available, all to "help it connect quicker". Just get your own IP because having to toggle wifi on multiple devices is way slower and annoying. I get that AirDrop and FindMy** and other features require these things to work but how about just giving a (one-time) warning when people turn them off. Most people will never turn them off ever so let the subset of us who want them off have it work in a sane way.
> I hate that they don't even go through DHCP most of the time and just assume that last known IP is still available, all to "help it connect quicker".
Oh, I forgot all about that.
I worked at a K-12 that deployed Apple devices awhile back, and this behavior was a nightmare for network management. Especially for travelling teachers who would take their device to several different buildings throughout the day (and, therefore, different IP subnets with the same WiFi name).
The worst part was that some of the devices would just... never emit a DHCPREQUEST. They'd either ignore the fact that there was an address collision confusing everyone else's ARP tables, or connect to the network but stick with an IP that had no route to a gateway. As I recall -- it's been awhile -- even setting the lease duration to something very low didn't seem to help. Indeed, I think that made it worse.
It was bad enough at one point that we had those devices with the worst behavior set up with reserved IPs and a hidden WiFi network that was a district-wide VLAN with a single subnet.
They're not automatically turning on if you're "turning them off" from Control Center. Those buttons just temporarily disable them (and state that clearly when you do so). The only way to actually turn off Wifi and Bluetooth is to go into Settings and turn them off there.
But that same button used to be a permananent toggle, and now there is no way to restore the (better) old behavior. Another instance of Apple thinking they know better than their users.
You are not everyone. Just because you think it's better doesn't mean it actually is. Most of the time when I want to disconnect from Wifi, it's a temporary measure because the network I'm connected to is slow or dead. I imagine it's the same for many others.
Apple is notoriously allergic to putting toggles for every little thing, and that shouldn't be a surprise to software developers. We all know every user-configurable setting increases complexity.
> We all know every user-configurable setting increases complexity.
They can also mean the difference between a tool and a toy or even worse, a slave collar.
One of the good practices in programming is to not hardcode things. Where that is followed, often the hardest part about configurability is the UI for it, since under the hood it's already determined by a bunch of variables anyway, and it's mostly a matter of exposing them nicely to the user.
Besides, it's way more complex to have a timed toggle than just a toggle.
"you people" -- you don't know the first thing about me. And this argument to excuse to treat adult consumers like infants, and use the people that don't mind as the measure all other adults have to reduce themselves to, is used for a lot more than just a wifi toggle.
If you want to have a disconnect button, add as another button choice to the panel. Even make it default. But the original button shouldn't have been broken with no recourse.
Not to mention, some brief wordy nearby text display in tiny print after the fact, is the opposite of clear.
This is one of the nice things about shortcuts. I created a shortcut that will turn off wifi and Bluetooth. You can then add an icon to your home screen to run the shortcut and boom. Both are actually turned off…not just disabled for 24 hours. I also have a shortcut to turn them back on when I need them.
Are you sure?
This is not the case in the latest iOS. Long-pressing the icons in Control Center offers a wider view and access to hotspot and airdrop settings. Pressing either WiFi or Bluetooth from this second menu has the same effect as the icons on the first page, (you can inspect settings afterwards and see it’s still “off until tomorrow”) and further long presses on the second page icons only let you choose which WiFi network or Bluetooth device to connect to.
On my phone (iOS 14.6), the Wifi and BT say "New Wi-Fi network connections have been turned off from Control Center" after long press. But that _seems_ to be the same message as if I do the "until tomorrow" way.
And the actual Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sliders are decidedly in the ON position. I must've concluded that since it didn't do the "until tomorrow" message then it behaved as I wanted.
I know its a minor inconvenience, but this is one of my biggest pet peeves with the whole OS. I wish there was a way to change the setting to actually control things with control center...
This does not, in fact, work as it seems. I think the best bet is a Shortcut that turns off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth entirely, as concernedctzn suggested below.
You can use the Shortcuts app to make a custom shortcut that permanently turns off both wifi and bluetooth, and then add that shortcut to your news/leftswipe menu to reduce the number of swipes/taps to get to it
I don't understand why it would ever be useful. Either you want it on, or not. Imagine if your mute button decided to reset every now and then. Pause button, or flashlight?
Basically nothing else works like that.
In fact figuring out how to turn off wifi with the combination of Airplane mode and wifi button just about blows my mind every time I try. So complicated.
Imagine you're not good at using computers. I've seen people accidentally turn on do not disturb and be unable to figure out why their phone isn't ringing so they think it's broken.
We are in a small minority of 'power users' - iPhones have hundreds of millions (billions?) of users across the entire world.
That's happened to me. I had to google it, turns out there's a physical switch I never used on the side of the phone that enables it and pushed accidentally.
IMHO, these are not good excuses to avoid a clear interface. If the rules are simple and clear, and presented clearly, even the dumbest of the dumb can learn them. Trying to guess and out-think the user only ends up in more confusion.
When you disable wifi/bluetooth via the control center, pop-up text appears saying exactly what that means. I'm not sure how they could make that more clear. It still may not be your (or my) desired default, but I at least understand the reasoning.
Tiny, wordy, brief text after the button press is not what I'd describe as clear. If you need to add "comments" to a (now three-state) button, it's a sign that the interface needs work.
It's extra complexity in the form of rules added to what was previously a simple to understand toggle button. That it goes against historical norms, reduces privacy, and wastes a bit of power is the icing.
