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Turning Off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in iOS 11's Control Center Doesn't Actually Turn Off Wi-Fi or Bluetooth (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: Turning off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you're not using them on your smartphone has long been standard, common sense, advice. Unfortunately, with the iPhone's new operating system iOS 11 - which was released to the general public yesterday - turning them off is not as easy as it used to be. Now, when you toggle Bluetooth and Wi-Fi off from the iPhone's Control Center -- the somewhat confusing menu that appears when you swipe up from the bottom of the phone -- it actually doesn't completely turn them off. While that might sound like a bug, that's actually what Apple intended in the new operating system. But security researchers warn that users might not realize this and, as a consequence, could leave Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on without noticing. Numerous Slashdot readers have complained about this "feature" this week.
It was very brave and forward thinking of Apple to not allow you to turn off Wifi.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Besides cutting off access to those radios to apps, what would be the purpose of turning them off now if it doesn't really turn them off?
Apple knows better than you. Just ask 'em.
The takeaway is that if you want to really and completely turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on iOS11 you can't do it from the Control Center anymore, you'll have to do it through the Settings app.
So the takeaway is that there is still a UI element that powers the radio off and the only thing changed is that a different UI element performs a disconnect rather than a power off. So a power-user that knows precisely which of the two she intends can pick the right one.
Calling it 'stupid' is a bit of an overreaction to what is basically a UI change to map a more-commonly-held button on what is perceived to the more-commonly-intended outcome. Maybe that attribution of intended outcome is wrong (as anyone that has tried to help less technical people, trying to figure out what someone is actually trying to do is a hell of a thing) but it seems at least reasonable to me that "get me off this shitty coffeeshop WiFi but do associate with my home WiFi when I get there" is a more common intent than "don't get on any network whatsoever until I remember to hit the button again".
You need to say thank you that your smartphone cannot be remotely turned into a recording/spying device without your knowledge or consent and without installing any apps. Oh, wait ..
Can we go back to the 'old' way, where I buy something, its mine, and I get to determine how I want it to work.
I know, I know, grumpy old man grumbling about progress....
Maybe just go back to the old dictionary... where "off" meant off, and progress meant something other than "up yours".
Courage in the wake of wifi stack vunerabilities.
Courage that they won't have a bluetooth stack vulnerability like android.
Courage is what it takes, courage...
Every time I see an app post, I imagine the aliens from Mars Attacks. Only instead of saying "ack" all the time, they're saying "app".
So what? You don't own the device. You just rent it. It is closed source software. You get whatever the corporation decides is OK. Isn't that what you want? If not, why did you buy it?
my iphone 6+ will stay on 9.3.5 forever, or until the hardware dies... whichever comes first.
How do I stop the auto updates? It's impossible to stop the phone from downloading updates automatically, unless you jailbreak it... OR you block the following URLs on your wifi router:
appldnld.apple.com
mesu.apple.com
This will prevent your iDevice from auto downloading OS updates. Don't worry, you can still update your installed apps, it only blocks iOS updates.
"The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely." -- 1984
Once again, Apple does whatever the hell it wants to in the OS because it thinks the average user is too stupid to know what they actually want. This mindset has been around since the original Macintosh, and yet the fanatic Apple fanbois keep buying their products and insisting that they are more secure than other devices/OSs. That's why I don't buy Apple products, the headaches and risks are just too high.
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Does airplane mode truly disable both the radios? The article didn't say, and I don't have time to look at the docs right now.
A Tin Foil hat for your iPhone.
No, seriously. At night you don't want to be disturbed anyway. So a case that is completely opaque to the electromagnetic spectrum.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I use Apple products, much fewer of them then I used to. If there is one thing I do not like about Apple its how they decide what you can and cannot do. Its basically you either accept this or you don't. Yes, obviously many think a on/off switch means exactly that. But then again you would be wrong and in some cases it means active and inactive. I don't see much of a problem with this if indeed it helps in someway with better connections. But then again, these sort of little things don't bug me much.
Sadly there are those here that will argue that point.
A BFH.
Rant #1 - Arg! Apple doesn't give users enough control over how their devices work!!!
Rant #2 - Arg! Apple is giving users too much control over how their devices work!!!
Pick one.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
If you drive around NYC you'll notice little plastic pods mounted to poles or traffic lights at many intersections. These are actually Apple-designed and manufactured devices designed to capture Bluetooth and WiFi MAC addresses that are beaconed nearby.
These addresses are tied to you, of course, because Apple knows all of the hardware IDs of your phone. Apple also furnishes this information to the surveillance state.
The NSA's FRUITCUT (Fast Recognition of Users In Transit by Capture of Universal Telemetry) program is basically an endeavor to track everyone with a phone using this technology.
After being outrageously outraged I lied down and took a stresstab and I think I see the usability standpoint. They're probably getting tons of customer support calls from naive users whining that they can't airdrop from their iPhone to their iPad because they turned off wifi on their iPhone. (I do that all the time as I leave my macbook connected to an ethernet connection and turn off the wifi and then can't figure out why my macbook doesn't show up on airdrop but the 15 people's iPhone in the office cubes around me do!)
That said, they've broken the first law of UI design - DON'T CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR OF A BUTTON ONCE YOU'VE ESTABLISHED ITS USE. If anything it should be a tri-state button now - full on - apple services only - off. That would've clarified the intent to the user of the change AND alerted the user to its valid state.
Is it any wonder that many considered Steve Jobs an asshole when he would go off? He was probably going off on UI designers doing stuff like this. "DUDE - I PAY YOU A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR AND YOU'RE PUSHING THIS S$*@ ON ME?! WTF?!"
they also changed the settings on podcasts to poll for new episodes every hour, instead of every six hours. So at 5 am your cell wakes up and uses the insecure bluetooth to connect to your hacker neighbor kid in the basement. If that source is too far away, it uses insecure Join Any Network wi-fi to connect to your hacker neighbor kid across the street in her basement.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A short press should pop up two choices. 'disconnect from wifi connection ' and disable wifi radio'
I award you some imaginary mod points on this one.
Hell here's an imaginary grant don't spend it all in one dream.
It's strange that nobody has not stated the obvious reason why Apple is doing this: iBeacons. This way indoor positioning works always.
I always know, Apple is just too busy in innovations that She or He or it (whatsoever) forget to do the proper planning. Launched iPhone X with so late delivery. iPhone 8 sales are dipped. Released Wireless battery charging function and the AirPower, the Charging Pad by Apple, will release in 2018! So Well un-planned!
-Pratyaksh Somani reach me at https://www.techkt.com Posts about Technology, cool gadgets, Android, iPhone and lots mo
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Sadly there are those here that will argue that point.
In a few months Apple will release a NEW iPhone and everyone will happily wait in lines all over again to be the first ones to buy it so why wouldn't we argue that point?
No Copy&Paste? Eh, Apple says I don't need it. No multi-tasking? Eh, Apple says I don't need it. No headphone jack? Eh, Apple says I don't need it. No home button? Eh, Apple says I don't need it. But don't worry - People will still buy it.
What about airplane mode? Are the radios still technically on? If so how would the NTSB or w/e US government branch would react to a personal device with always on radios?
While that might sound like a bug, that's actually what Apple intended in the new operating system.
It may be what Apple intended, but it still counts as a bug. Any time that the UI is actively misleading, that's a bug.
The problem is that they replaced an engineer with a pointy haired boss with an MBA.
The only thing factually correct in that sentence is that Tim Cook does have a MBA degree and there is no evidence that constitutes a problem for Apple. Steve Jobs was not an engineer and did not have an engineering degree (or any other degree for that matter). Tim Cook IS an engineer and does have an engineering degree from Auburn University.
Tim Cook knows how to do is squeeze people for more cash, exploiting their captive user base until people throw their hands up in the air and walk away.
There is no evidence that Apple customers are walking away in any meaningful numbers.
It's ironic, Microsoft is trying so hard to be like Apple, but Apple is trying very hard to be like Oracle.
If you think that then I don't think you've actually dealt with Oracle. The experience of working with Apple is NOTHING like the experience of working with Oracle.
On my Android phone, a Oneplus One with Lineage OS on it, even thought I rarely turn on wi-fi, when I look under battery stats wi-fi is the second biggest battery drain. So unless I don't understand what off means, it doesn't turn off the radio.
Did anyone notice that the control center button will turn Bluetooth ON if it is OFF in settings? It just won't turn it OFF. That's broken and user-hostile behavior.
Corporations, like Target, can't track users if they have bluetooth disabled. Keeping bluetooth "always on" will make it easier for them to passively track iOS11 shoppers as they travel through their stores (whether they use the app or not).
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09...
Here's my understanding of what the buttons in Control Center now do:
Airplane Mode - same as before, turns off all radios - wifi, BT, cell.
The green cellular lollipop - not intuitively obvious to me that this was for cellular, but anyway it turns off the cellular radio entirely as one would expect.
Blue wifi icon - this is the one with the new functionality. It's a 'disconnect' button now, not a 'turn off' button. The use case, from what I can tell, is for people who want to not use wifi at a particular location (like at a restaurant that offers wifi but their Internet connection is down) but don't want to worry about turning wifi back on once they leave that location. There are some anecdotes on reddit about people who have turned off wifi but forgot to turn it back on once they got home and blew through their data plan in a couple days. Wifi can be turned off entirely via the Settings app like before.
Blue BT icon - again, like the wifi button, it's simply a 'disconnect' button now. I'm having a hard time thinking of a use case for this, however. Maybe some people want to temporarily disconnect from their keyboard, speakers, card, headphones, whatever, without having to remember to turn BT back on again later when they do want to connect...? I only ever use BT for in-car stuff, and never had need to turn off BT.
So I think the new ability is a good one to have, and a good one for the control center, but yeah it's questionable to change an existing button's function without a more clear indicator of what it does. Like a pop-up that says 'This just temporarily disconnects you from your wifi network, instead of turning wifi off. [] Do not show again.' would perhaps have been advisable?
"If you want to really and completely turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on iOS11 you can't do it from the Control Center anymore, you'll have to do it through the Settings app."
And here I thought that everyone went through the Settings app to begin with. I always have.
"Shall we play a game?" -W.O.P.R.
In any other context Apple's execs would roundly condemn anyone who even suggested that "no means maybe" or "no means pester me relentlessly until I give up fighting"
It will temporarily suspend the radio until it "courageously" restarts itself the next morning at 5:00am.
This is so typical of Apple. As long as you want to do things the way they envisioned them, they're great, but if you want something different, their response is "Why would you want to do that?" They've had this attitude since at least the early Macintosh days.
It was very brave and forward thinking of Apple to not allow you to turn off Wifi.
We don't want the kiddies skipping ads in their games, amiright? ;)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
I have a pair of bluetooth earphones that I use with my iphone and ipad. They're a cheap brand with no way to force a pairing mode without plugging them into USB power, so after I had them connected on my ipad for my treadmill time, I had to find my damned ipad and turn off its bluetooth before I could connect them to my phone. A total pain. Since the iOS11 panel is now more convenient than drilling down menus in the settings app, maybe I will remember to disconnect BT after I'm done running. But I doubt it.
Hey, Apple. You're programming it wrong.
#DeleteFacebook
do nothing. Eventually the door will close, but it takes a while. Now repeat experiment, but press the close door button. Door will close predictably sooner (time it if you like).
That used to be the case. But nowadays more and more lifts are produced with the button not even wired.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's for non-power users who turn off their Bluetooth and don't understand why their Apple Pencil stopped working or why their Watch won't connect to their phone. I'd imagine the Genius Bars get to answer this question 20 times every day. I'd be OK with it if they'd give power users the option to revert back to the old behavior.
now forbid carrying iPhones except with batteries removed.
airplane mode that isn't
The "Good Guys" have an always available way to exfiltrate your private data, or remote control your device if necessary. What's not to like?
Given "longer battery life" has always been a big deal with mobile devices and actually drives sales, it is hard to believe such a bone headed move (keeping the radio on drains the battery) makes it pass all the internal reviews unless big brother's invisible hand is providing guidance.
Im never buying another apple product ever again... their developers have become assholes
Not to defend iOS, but hasn't Android been doing this since KitKat ?
P.S. can't read the article, it seems to be down.
They said ack because they used an analog version of TCP/IP.
I'm a little sorry for this post, but just a little.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Even the first gen iPad got cut and paste. It even works between applications. You can cut a URL and paste it into your email client, apps, or another tab in Safari.
I know because I still have one. I still sometimes use it as a disposable device. If something happens to it, I don't much care. So, I use it in places I'd not willingly risk a newer device. Other than Safari crashing when sites are bloated, it's still very functional.
Why yes, yes I did just defend Apple.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
So apple introduces a cool, machine-learning system to keep âoeyour browsing your business âoe.... but they make dead easy for companies to track users by MAC address?!??
This move of Apple right here is a proof that they are not after the security and privacy of their users.
Devices are malware proof and your data is secure, YEAH RIGHT.
I find it interesting that this and the Purism phone news are next to one another, when one of the main drivers of Purism is they provide hardware killswitches for wireless (and webcams, and mics).
This change makes perfect sense to me (an Apple developer).
The unique features of iOS & macOS connectivity like Continuity, AirDrop, AirPlay, Apple Watch integration, etc, ..you expect to always work with your local devices, even if you have decided to temporarily disconnect from some WiFi network or BT device.
I think this is another pretend issue by non-Apple users that don't understand these connectivity features used by tens of millions of Apple users on a daily basis.
Of course someone will bring up 'battery issues', but truthfully, it only exists in their own OCD head.
As for security, well if an iPhone user is genuinely worried their iPhone could be compromised (i.e. basically Jailbroken) via BT or WiFi at a given point in time, I suggest they should turn off the phone completely and run for the hills–they have bigger problems lurking around.
See for some iOS security background (people not used to understanding that Apple takes security seriously may need to watch this over a number of times):
Behind the Scenes of iOS Security – Black Hat 2016 (First half is on-device security: "Data Protection".)
Behind the Scenes of iOS Security – Black Hat 2016 – Synchronising Secrets (Skip to "iCloud Keychain" implementation.)
iOS Security Guide – Apple (pdf)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It is the same in Android and for a long time, when you turn off wifi, it is still on, it will always scan for available SSID and it helps for location. There is a deep setting to really turn it off however.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Apple users are not expected to know what is WiFi or bluetooth, let alone need to turn them off.