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 it clearly does.

> It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.'

-- You Know Who

And that's not "offering" the plans, is it? When I ask you if you want a piece of chewing gum, I'm offering you a piece of chewing gum. If I have some chewing gum in my pocket and it's possible for someone -- not everybody, just someone -- to overpower me, that's not quite the same as offering. And yes, that's an extreme example, Apple isn't hiding the option on a planet full of killer robots in another galaxy. But it's also not quite "offering" it.

edit: but you can definitely turn them off through the Settings app.

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.

My iPhone SE doesn't have 3D touch, or if it does, I have no idea what it is.

So as far as I know, no, I don't have that option.

I think this whole argument just lends more support to the idea that Apple is being deceptive with this UI.

However, after all the feedback here I did some testing and it appears the GP was wrong: The submenu obtained by 3D touch/long-press doesn't actually turn WiFi off. My apologies for repeating his claim without backing it up.

How hard would it have been to emulate what they did with f.lux, I mean Night Shift and say "Bluetooth, off until 5am (tap for more options)" or "Wi-Fi, off at this location (tap for more options)"

You can still switch off the radios if you want in settings.

Every single time I've wanted to turn off Wifi and Bluetooth, it's because I know I'm going to struggle to get my battery to last till I can charge it again. I'm going to be out and on the move, so Wifi has no value to me except as a battery drain.

In fact, I struggle to think of any other ordinary use for disabling Wifi and Bluetooth. The real exceptions are like (I have this one now) I don't have ADSL at home but I haven't been bothered to turn off the modem or my mate who's paranoid of being stalked by companies. But those are exceptional. I wouldn't write a feature to deal with them. Except to keep the battery going, who turns wifi off?

It sounds like I've lost a real feature and I don't know how to get it back any more. If I want to be able to send and receive data but I want my phone to last all day[], what can I do?

[]: NB. The only reason I want my phone to last all day is because I want to use it. Consequently, saying "my phone lasts all day no problem" isn't an answer. You probably don't use your phone like I do.

This. We can’t turn off BlueTooth/WiFi from the swipe-up screen anymore. Full stop.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086

I'm honestly confused... Do you really believe that most users have distinct concepts in their mental model for "wifi off" and "disconnected from a network"? They look at the button, it's not blue anymore, it's off. Then later they think... "Wait how did this randomly turn on again?" I believe this will be the experience even of the majority of tech savvy users, let alone typical ones.

The new control center behaves in the way that most people actually use the buttons. More importantly it solves a major problem in that it no longer requires the user to know what radios need to be on for various features they use to work. Apple probably has all the support call stats they need to decide this was a better behavior.

It always matters if you're trying to minimize user frustration and confusion. The mental model determines what the user expects their actions to do.

> because the user shouldn't be responsible for managing the radios in their phone. > The new control center behaves in the way that most people actually use the buttons. More importantly it solves a major problem in that it no longer requires the user to know what radios need to be on for various features they use to work.

I don't think anyone (certainly not me) is arguing that this isn't a useful feature for the phone to have and is what many people want, at least some of the time. The argument is that the feature's behavior should be clear rather than misleading.

> Apple probably has all the support call stats they need to decide this was a better behavior.

Again, fine, but don't suggest one thing and silently do the "better" thing. Either allow the user to confirm the behavior, or create a UI that clarifies the behavior so people aren't misled into believing that "off until 5am" or "off until you move" means "off."

If Apple wants to change this paradigm, they have to be very very careful about it. And they obviously haven't been.

Nobody cares about this other than technical people, who really only care because they perceive it to be Apple Arrogance. Nearly 40% of the installed base is on iOS 11, if there were complaints about this we'd have heard about it by now (just like we hear about everything else).

Tech blogs and the EFF might write about it, but aside from the HN threads about it, no one in the real world will ever care because the change is an improvement over what it used to do.

Deliberately changing how a well known function works is stupid, especially the part about it not being immediately obvious that it now works differently from literally every other phone out there.

This is a statement that must have links confirming that most people actually do use it that way.

Meanwhile the new shitty toggle leads to my phone randomly dropping perfectly stable 4G connection in an attempt to connect to random Wi-Fi hotspots on the train

So if most iPhone users are using these buttons to disconnect from their current network, or to disconnect the current bluetooth device, then I understand why they'd change them to have that meaning.

Disconnecting from the current wifi network or disconnecting the current bluetooth device probably comes up somewhat frequently as a task the user wants to accomplish, whereas actually disabling the radios likely does not come up much at all outside of airplane mode. So I get what Apple is doing. I wonder why they chose to maintain the button UI though. Perhaps it's because people are expecting it, and are used to it?

The UI (mis)informs the user that wifi has been turned off by greying it out, at the very least it's inconsistent with other toggle buttons. Or are there other things apple decides that you don't really want turned off?

And, of course, voted up to the very top of the comments section here, as usual. The Apple apologists here are a bit of a plague.