Alf Watt:
I worked on the Mac OS Wi-Fi client user experience at Apple from 2007–2012, implementing a number of features to help users identify when a Wi-Fi connection was not working as expected, as well as the utilities built into the OS to help debug problems when they occurred. When I left Apple, just after my five year anniversary, I owned the Wi-Fi Utility and Network Utility apps, along with some assorted supporting components deep inside the OS.
During my last few years I spent a lot of time working closely with AppleCare on customer Wi-Fi and networking issues: poring over user trouble reports, sitting down at call centers and listening in on calls, and generally doing everything I could to improve the user experience of Wi-Fi for Apple users.
I failed.
Ignoring the bad copyediting and his possible behind the scenes motives for writing this, Watt’s piece is a pretty damning indictment of at least one seemingly dysfunctional area inside Apple. I will say that, as soon as I heard about WiFi Assist, I thought it was a bad idea from a customer point of view. I didn’t realize that it might have been a bad idea inside Apple, too.
I’ve been monitoring my cellular usage with Wifi Assist both activated and deactivated. There’s a definitive and massive spike in usage with it switched on that can’t be attributed just to my upgrade from the 5 to the 6s. While the performance is certainly much more consistent with it switched on, the data usage difference is beyond drastic. I get what Apple was going for with the feature, but the implementation…
Spot on analysis, Shawn, although there’s something else to consider too – since the dawn of Apple, employees have been complaining about their managers.
But this does seem to indicate a malaise. I remember years ago reading an analyst talking about Microsoft and saying that maybe, just maybe, there’s the smell of rot setting in. In hindsight that was astonishingly prescient. I have to say that bearing in mind the most recent software output from Apple over the last year or two, I’m starting to smell the rot too. Things aren’t right. The hardware side of things seems fine. Better than ever, if anything. Software…? Not so much.
Correction: since the dawn of time employees have been complaining about managers.
The expectations of Apple are beyond reasonable.
Remember they are still staffed by humans.
“Ignoring […] his possible behind the scenes motives for writing this…”
Important to keep in mind. However, my experience and that of friends, family, coworkers who use their iDevices on mixed Wi-Fi systems (not 100% Airport, mixed iOS/Windows/embedded systems, etc) has been getting worse and worse over the last 2 years. Frozen connections and apps, incredibly slow response on unloaded networks, failure to connect, etc. Maybe it is the general Wi-Fi environment now that everyone is using it for everything everywhere – but the Apple systems seem to fare much worse than Windows (7 and above). Subjective, but I hear it a lot.
I’ve been waiting for this feature FOREVER! I used to find it so frustrating when I’d be leaving an area where I was on WiFi and the iPhone would struggle to stay on that WiFi connection when there was no way I was close enough to get a signal. This used to happen every day when leaving the house or work. I can’t tell you how many times I was sitting at the light at work, well out of WiFi range, trying to download a new podcast and nothing happening because it had one bar of WiFi and was trying to get that signal.
Yup. And then I turn off wifi, only to finally remember to turn it back on a week later.
Wifi Assist’s damage is a fraction of that.