This tweet from Mike Rundle struck a nerve:
https://twitter.com/flyosity/status/1067108399169576962
This happens to me all the time. I’m in an app that’s attached to my home WiFi and I walk (or drive, as a passenger) away from my house. As I move further from my house, the signal gets progressively weaker and whatever app I’m in just hangs, stuck waiting for a reply from my home WiFi that’s never coming.
If you follow down the Twitter thread, you’ll see this response:
> I’ve been using Shortcuts for that. Shortcut that drops wifi, calculates time to destination (Home), texts wife the ETA and then re-enables wifi (after x amount of seconds).
While I do applaud this effort, this feels like a kluge to me, a hack that should just not be necessary.
My preference? Set a threshold that automatically drops WiFi when my signal drops and I am getting further away from my WiFi router. The key is the word “automatically”.
This could be a setting, since this might not be an issue for everyone. But given the enthusiastic response to the Shortcut, it’s certainly an issue worth addressing.
UPDATE: Some time ago, Apple added the setting Cellular > Wi-Fi Assist (scroll down below that long list under CELLULAR DATA) that someone suggested might help with this, though I believe the intent was to help with poor WiFi, not specific to this problem. As it turns out, this is on for me. Does not make a difference.
Use GPS to record the locations where Wi-Fi strength drops too much, then use that information to switch before it happens.
Yeah, this is a pain in the ass. I have a couple of applications that just lock up when switching from Wi-Fi to cellular.
I’ve been hoping for a similar option for quite some time. I’d like to have wifi switched on/off based on location. No need for my phone to announce my position (and let it be tracked) by negotiating with every wifi I pass by. And a pita to turn it off manually and remember to turn it on again when I am near a trusted wifi.
I have WiFi Assist on. It definitely doesn’t solve this problem for me, though I think it makes it better. (I’d have to try turning it off for a while to see if that’s just my imagination, and I’d rather be happy.)
That shouldn’t be a problem due to MAC randomization, but I never heard if Apple fixed the 2017 bug in that. (Never found a CVE to look up, either.)
This is one of those problems that Apple doesn’t care about.
Like the “A song” problem (iPhone plays the alphabetically first song in your playlist every time you get in the car), it affects many people, possibly millions of people, multiple times per day, and has been a problem for years, and Apple has not fixed it.
The “Wi-Fi Assist” feature may be what some product manager or designer—i.e., not an engineer—thought would fix the problem, but it clearly doesn’t. Not based on my experience or the others who’ve replied in this thread.
It’s true that a lot of people turn this off,* and that it’s better to leave on, but it definitely does NOT fix the problem. Not sure if its threshold for what constitutes Wi-Fi that needs “assistance” is too low, or what, but it definitely does not solve the problem.
* Probably a lot of the same group of people who quit all their apps 10x per day because someone told them once that was why their phone is slow/low battery.
For one thing, WiFi Assist only kicks in after WiFi has failed. So you’re stuck waiting on the timeout.
I enjoy “A a a a a a a a a very good song” to fix that problem – best 99 cents I ever spent on iTunes 😀
100% agree on Apple and it’s DGAF attitude on actual users’ everyday constant headaches that they cause and could easily fix. Instead they focus on things like making devices 0.2mm thinner. Because THAT’S what users really need ?
I can only hope that Shortcuts will help us if Apple opens it up to triggered actions. If you could trigger shortcuts (such as by proximity) this might be able to be fixed without further support from Apple – although only nerds will benefit from such a DIY solution.
Interesting. Yeah, the wording in the setting is ambiguous as to how it helps: “Automatically use cellular data when Wi-Fi connectivity is poor.”
This happens to me 2 or 3 times a day and it drives me crazy. Especially as my phone can take an age to locate the T-Mobile signal once I have manually turned WiFi off. I remembering being so excited when WiFi Assist was announced. It didn’t make any noticeable difference for me. It is things like these that make me question my own sanity at spending $1200 on a phone.
Apple has more or less implemented a way around this in the Control Center, but it won’t work for this case because it disconnects until TOMORROW rather than just for an hour.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine, too, though at least the current implementation lets me disconnect from broken public WiFi networks for the day.
Apple does have a solution. It’s called WiFi assist. If you’ve turned this off because of data usage concerns a few years ago, turn it back on now that data plans are much more reasonable. I turned WiFi assist back on, and this took care of this problem for me…
Huh! I based that on another wording from Apple, so I could be wrong!
I never did find a developer-level article on what it did. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s left undocumented so they can change it as they want.
Tap it twice and it’ll drop, reenable, and in my experience *not* reconnect to the network exactly because it’s got poor signal strength.
(Not a great solution, but I find it does what I want in the “bad network signal strength” case, by NOT reconnecting until I get closer.)
Are you sure the “A song” problem is inside Apple’s domain, and not a problem with the implementation inside the head unit?
Apple can’t fix “the head unit told the iOS device to play the first song in the playlist”, because Apple can’t know when that command is *right* and when it’s *wrong*…
Incorrect, the iPhone does NOT play the first alpha song when you get into your car — it’s entirely dependent on how your car’s head unit is programmed to poll and interact w/ the iPod music API.
My car resumes the last song or podcast.
That’s a case of barking up the wrong tree, I’m afraid.
bingo. it’s the head unit. it’s likely issuing a “play” command to the iPod API, without specifying what to play. My car is able to figure it out
I’ll try that. Thanks!
Sure, there are lots of bad head units. I’d say most of them, based on the cars I’ve driven (both factory and 3rd-party units).
Apple can ignore the pesky real world, but there is also a lot they could do:
* The iPhone could do a better job of remembering what was playing before. How many times has my streaming radio app lost a connection; a moment later: “A Song”. :-/ Or: I’m playing a podcast in the house. I get in the car. “A Song”.
* If the head unit sends a “resume playing” command, and the iPhone can’t remember what was playing before, for the love of Steve don’t play the freaking “A Song”!!
They can work around the problem. Recognize that many head units are badly programmed and make the iPhone work the way the user expects.
For example, if Bluetooth was connected in the last few seconds and now it’s requesting “play the first song in the playlist”, ignore the request.
If it’s asking to “resume playing whatever was playing before”, and if the iPhone doesn’t know what was playing before, don’t play the “A Song”!
Yes, iOS devices are pretty aggressive about retaining a weak WiFi signal.
The problem can also be addressed by configuring your WiFi router—if it allows you to make “advanced” changes. (If you’re using an Apple AirPort, you’re out of luck.) You can configure the router with a minimum signal strength at which it will drop the connection. You can raise that so that it will drop clients that are getting a marginal signal. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that you don’t have marginal signal within your house first…
For many people, the RIGHT WiFi setup at home will involve multiple access points, either hardwired or mesh, to ensure that there aren’t any low-signal areas. Things like fireplaces and appliances can cause radio shadows that block WiFi. Having multiple access points with a lower signal strength each often works much better than one really strong access point, especially in suburban and rural areas. When you’ve got a setup like that, it’s important to tune the minimum signal strength so that clients roam to the next access point promptly, instead of hanging onto the weak signal from the current access point until you’re practically on top of another access point…
WiFi is radio, and radio really isn’t that easy to do right 🙂