iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad for User Security

Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by josteink on Friday October 06, 2017 @01:50AM (#15414710)

> The way this works in iOS 11 is now inconsistent and confusing

I really don't see how the apologists can deny this.

In iOS every UI control to toggle something on or off toggles things on or off... They all have the same UI presentation, and shows the same affordances, leading the user to expect the same behaviour.

And that they have. Everywhere except for wifi. Who in their right mind though this was a good idea?

How is it possible to argue this inconsistency is not a source of confusion?

I can't wait for my next flight, to hear how the in-flight personnel are going to explain this to Apple users.

"If you have electrical equipment with a radio transmitter, please turn it off now. If you have a Note 8, please let us know now, so we won't have to call the bomb-squad. And lastly if you have an wifi-only iPad running iOS 11, please make sure you turn wifi off using the special settings app because flight-mode doesn't work".

This is getting ridiculous. I bet the airliners are really happy about this change.

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by sigjuice on Friday October 06, 2017 @03:15AM (#15414983)

When you get on a plane, enabling Airplane Mode should turn off all the radios on an iPhone or iPad. You say flight mode doesn't work, so is this no longer the case?

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by josteink on Friday October 06, 2017 @03:56AM (#15415108)

I believe flight mode actually works, but people with wifi-only devices have been conditioned to believe disabling wifi is sufficient.

And with Apple now being inconsistent about what a on/off toggle actually does... It's hard to tell what toggling flight-mode actually results in.

And if I were in the airline business, I would take an issue with that.

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by sigjuice on Friday October 06, 2017 @04:13AM (#15415177)

I am actually quite surprised by this and to me it looks like people are just overcomplicating things. You get on a plane, you turn on Airplane Mode. Simple. It would never ever occur to me in a million years to turn on Airplane Mode on my phone, but then go ahead and just turn off the wifi on my iPad. Also, isn't Bluetooth also supposed to be off, which Airplane Mode would take care of?

EDIT: This is what Airplane Mode looks like https://i.imgur.com/mEMYdL6.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4L3uZmm.jpg

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by evolve2017 on Friday October 06, 2017 @08:09AM (#15416121)

As an opposing viewpoint, turning off wifi is exactly what I used to do when boarding a plane - my bluetooth radio is always off.

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by boobsbr on Friday October 06, 2017 @04:59AM (#15415378)

Interestingly, my stock HTC One M7 suffers the same problem, but in regards to Location.

Enabling/disabling Location in the quick settings menu only changes Location settings between Low Accuracy and High Accuracy.

I have to open the phone settings, then go into Location, to then be able to completely turn it off.

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by briandear on Friday October 06, 2017 @03:43AM (#15415061)

This is just totally false. Airplane mode is still airplane mode and turns everything off.

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Re:iOS 11's Misleading "Off-Ish" Setting for Radios Is Bad f... by josteink on Friday October 06, 2017 @03:51AM (#15415093)

My point is that on wifi-only devices, people have been conditioned into believing that turning wifi off effectively is the same as flight mode.

Now it no longer is. Why did Apple have to cause this needless confusion?

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