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Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over iOS Wi-Fi Assist (appleinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A class-action suit has been filed against Apple in U.S. District Court over Wi-Fi Assist being turned on by default in iOS 9. Wi-Fi Assist is designed to switch to cellular data when a user is trying to perform an action over the internet on a poor Wi-Fi signal. This has the natural side effect of using cellular data. Since iOS 9 turned it on for many users, they weren't necessarily expecting that extra use, causing some of them to exceed their data caps. A former Apple employee who was in a leadership position for Mac OS X Wi-Fi software has commented on the issue, saying that the Wi-Fi Assist mess was unavoidable given how Apple's management treats that part of the business.
Quoting :"[O]ne particular directorial edict which I pushed back against at the end of my tenure sticks out as not just particularly telling, but deeply misguided: 'Make it self-healing.' Self healing in this context meaning that the networking system, Wi-Fi in particular, should try to correct problems that caused the network to fail, which, if you have spent any time trying to diagnose networking issues is a clear misunderstanding of the issues involved. ... Asking the devices which connect to this vast complex network of networks to detect, and then transparently fix problems in the infrastructure without the permission of the administrators is, well, it's absolutely the pinnacle of buzzword driven product management. Real pointy-haired boss territory."
Quoting :"[O]ne particular directorial edict which I pushed back against at the end of my tenure sticks out as not just particularly telling, but deeply misguided: 'Make it self-healing.' Self healing in this context meaning that the networking system, Wi-Fi in particular, should try to correct problems that caused the network to fail, which, if you have spent any time trying to diagnose networking issues is a clear misunderstanding of the issues involved. ... Asking the devices which connect to this vast complex network of networks to detect, and then transparently fix problems in the infrastructure without the permission of the administrators is, well, it's absolutely the pinnacle of buzzword driven product management. Real pointy-haired boss territory."
I like the IDEA of Wi-Fi Assist, as it comes in handy when you're on a crummy WiFi connection like the kind that you'll find at a hotel or on a train.
It just shouldn't be turned on by default without prompting the user, though. Nobody likes surprises like that, especially if you're on a metered data plan like most of us are.
Except that what Apple is doing with WiFi Assist is hardly so cryptic. Transparently switching from one network to another (both of which the user has permission to access) in order to maintain a data connection is hardly "the pinnacle of buzzword driven product management". I would say that it is the sort of behavior that most people would expect in the modern mobile era.
Apple's mistake was not in creating the feature. Their mistake was in implementing the feature as being "on" by default without considering the ridiculously low data caps of many cellular contracts, and the ridiculously high overage fees of some of them. In the next iOS update WiFi Assist will be turned "off" by default, and this entire "controversy" will be filed on the shelf right next to Bendgate.
If Apple really wants to shake things up, they need to build their own cellular network with 100 GB or 200 GB data caps. Sprint looks like a good candidate to buy in the U.S. given its current financial situation. Do that, and people won't be bitching about WiFi Assist; they'll be praising it as the new normal.
It's good to see the first three posts are neutral to positive toward Apple. But, it won't last.
Just another article written specifically to say, "Apple does it wrong, and needs to do what I think they should do, so their non-customers will be as happy as their customers".
In my opinion, the only company who does data caps in a fair way is T-Mobile. You still have a data limit, but rather than unexpected charges on your account you get a slowdown in speed. Now, it would be nice if they had more options for increasing the limit - even temporarily - but that is the only customer-friendly way to approach data caps. It is very easy to have an "oops" moment and exceed your data plan. You can blame people for being stupid, but even smart people make mistakes.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That would mean losing about 90% of iPhone sales.
Remember, Apple has "strategic partnerships" with wireless providers. Do you really not think there was a discussion about this anywhere among the Apple executives and the brass from the telecoms?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Metered plan is such a nice term for what these providers do.
Why not something more accurate, like "data rape" or "wallet diddle" plan?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
how about a class action against Microsoft which made millions of PCs download 3GB being MS Windows 10 -- just in case they wanted to upgrade. This pushed people over monthly broadband limits, sometimes at great expense. Apparently possible to disable, but the default was on.
While they are at it: another class action suit for spying on their users and exporting private data to the MS servers; again on by default and impossible to switch off completely.
I think metering is fair on mobile wireless.
Well, OK, it's not fair, but it's more fair than not having any metering.
Mobile wireless is a limited and non-fungible resources. On any given cell at any given time, there's a limited amount of bandwidth to be shared around. If that cell has enough bandwidth to serve everyone using it, they should be able to fill their boots. If that cell is congested, you need some mechanism to prevent all the bandwidth being consumed by a few users. When I'm in a setting like a railway station with a thousand people all wanting some bandwidth, it makes me angry to see the people streaming video on their phone like their entertainment is more important than everyone else who wants their email and IM to work.
What we have now does not really work ; it's a pricing mechanism of deterring excessive use, but it doesn't assign prices correctly, it just bills your bandwidth use at a flat rate. Bandwidth that is uncontested should be cheap, or free. Bandwidth that is contested should cost more. What really needs to happen in these circumstances is a kind of Dutch auction, where every handset has a notion of what price it's prepared to pay for bandwidth, and the cell sets the price according to how congested it is. But this would be too complicated to sell to most people.
Unmetered wireless bandwidth is not fair, because it's only "too cheap to meter" when the cell has very few clients. Part of the drive for 5G is to push things to this point - 4G too (or else why would they provide such tiny caps with such huge bandwidth that you can burn through it all in minutes - it's not about giving your more bandwidth, it's about having enough bandwidth to serve more customers). As long as we keep up thinking of new media that consume more bandwidth, wireless will not be good enough to serve crowded cells.
He's not complaining that the data is metered, he's complaining about how the phone companies actually do it. For example: My wife's AT&T phone has the bare-minimum $15 plan. 200 megs a month. She's under wifi 99% of the time so we go as cheap as possible. We had to stay in a hotel one night and their wifi failed, meaning her phone flipped over into using LTE data. She got a text saying she had used three-quarters of her monthly allotment. Since it takes them some time to send that message, I used the AT&T app to see where she landed. It said 190/megs. She turned data off on her phone. Several hours later I got a text that she had gone over 200 megs and $10 had been added to my bill to give her another 200 megs, 40 of which had already been used. I called AT&T and asked how she could have used data when it was off. They said that it takes them four hours for them (and the app I used) to reflect our actual data usage. I asked them to set it up so that when her data goes over to just stop sending data when it's out. They said they cannot, their system was not set up that way. I told them that was bunk. When I had an iPad with a data plan through them. as soon as I ran out of data I got a message asking for permission to be charged for another allotment, clicking no cut me off. AT&T most certainly can do this but they choose not to. As a 'courtesy' they took off the charge which, and this is my favorite part, is the same amount it would cost me to get two gigs instead of 200 megs. Their approach is predatory and intended to trick their customers into going over. Oh, remember how I told you they mysteriously cannot turn off data when you run out? I asked why I would ever go through them to provide a cell phone to a misbehaving teenager if he or she could carelessly run up my bill? She was happy to tell me that for five dollars a month I could add parental controls to the line that included capping data usage. You know, the very service I was just told they cannot provide. I'm willing to bet that the original poster has a similar story to tell. American phone companies don't use metered data, they use tiered data, and if you had that sort of plan for power or water you'd be very upset the moment your routine changed.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)