Bluetooth and hotspot.

[joeblow7777]

I love the new control center in iOS 11 and how it gives me quick access to many more settings and features, but some of the connectivity toggles are just plain useless! Why is it that when I toggle bluetooth in the control center it doesn't actually turn it off, it just goes to "not connected"? This would make some kind of sense if it at least prevented connections, but even in this state as soon as I turned on my bluetooth earbuds they connected. So what's the point of this icon? If I really want to turn off bluetooth I have to go into settings, or turn on airplane mode, which is a step backward. That's what it was like before the control center was introduced in iOS 7!

Similarly, I turn off personal hotspot in the control center, but then if I look for wifi networks on my iPad it still shows my phone's hotspot plain as day, and will connect if I tap it. Again, this is while hotspot is set to "off" on my phone. In fact, this is true even if I turn it off in settings. I don't know if other devices see it, but I literally can't get my iPad to not detect a hotspot coming from my iPhone.

Is it just me? Am I missing something?

 

[chabig]

First, tell us why you don't want your iPad to see the iPhone hotspot. Second, remember that the iPad won't automatically connect to the iPhone hotspot, it has to be told to connect. So seeing the advertised hotspot causes no harm.

For you, the iOS 11 iPhone user, those toggles are now disconnect switches, not on-off switches.

 

[joeblow7777]

First, tell us why you don't want your iPad to see the iPhone hotspot. Second, remember that the iPad won't automatically connect to the iPhone hotspot, it has to be told to connect. So seeing the advertised hotspot causes no harm.

For you, the iOS 11 iPhone user, those toggles are now disconnect switches, not on-off switches.

Does it even matter why? But to answer your question, if the iPad can see and connect to the hotspot, the phone must be broadcasting something at all times. Seems like that must waste some amount of power. This is why I generally turn off such wireless connectivity features when I'm not using them.

I get (but don't like) that these are not really on/off toggles anymore, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Why is there even an option to toggle the hotspot "off" but it's still there for my iPad to connect to? And what's the point of the toggle if my bluetooth earbuds connect automatically even when bluetooth is toggled off (or rather "not connected")?

 

[chabig]

I think Apple is still about trying to make things "just work". If Apple executives were here, they'd probably say they don't want users having to think about wireless interfaces being on or off. That's in line with their stances on a long list of technologies that users used to manually manage--memory allocation, application launching and quitting (no more dots in the dock), saving of documents, etc.

Nothing connects until you tell it to (even your earbuds). And you wireless interfaces don't really use power unless they're being used (BlueTooth barely uses power even when being used). I think Apple has probably learned that people were turning off interfaces and then couldn't understand why services were not working. I think most people probably aren't as aware of how their devices function as you and me.

 

[joeblow7777]

I think Apple is still about trying to make things "just work". If Apple executives were here, they'd probably say they don't want users having to think about wireless interfaces being on or off. That's in line with their stances on a long list of technologies that users used to manually manage--memory allocation, application launching and quitting (no more dots in the dock), saving of documents, etc.

Nothing connects until you tell it to (even your earbuds). And you wireless interfaces don't really use power unless they're being used (BlueTooth barely uses power even when being used). I think Apple has probably learned that people were turning off interfaces and then couldn't understand why services were not working. I think most people probably aren't as aware of how their devices function as you and me.

I get what you're saying and you're probably right. I would just like to have more control, is all. I get that Apple wants to make everything as seamless as possible, but was being able to toggle these features on and off at will really too much for users to handle? I'm not going to switch over to Android over this or anything, but it's easy to see why people criticize iOS for not giving users freedom and control of their own device.

 

[chabig]

I understand what you're saying. Personally, I just accept the change and move on. For people who don't deal well with change, the angst can be very strong.

 

[joeblow7777]

Something else I realized tonight is that while bluetooth was on in the settings, even though toggled to "not connected", under battery, my usage time and standby are always the same. That is to say, the phone appears to always be in use even if the screen is off. It doesn't seem to use much power though, but it only stopped counting standby time as usage when I went into settings and turned off bluetooth all together. And no, it definitely wasn't connected to anything.