Another thing that bugs me about the iPhone

[alevasseur14]

I had no idea how much this would bother me until I started school again this semester after a three year break. There are three wireless networks available everywhere at my school. Two of them I can join, the other is secured for faculty I guess.

The problem shows up when I want to check my email or whatnot and it asks me if I want to join a wireless network. If I say yes and join one, I get taken to an Authentication page where I have to type in my student ID and password, if I'm using Safari. If I'm not, I don't get anything. The internet just won't work until I go to Safari and punch in my digits.

Rather than do that each and every time I wake my phone up, I'd rather just use 3G and be done with it. I know you can set it not to ask, but that's overkill for this one situation. Apple, please give us the option to permanently forget networks!

Alright then. Rant's over, back to the studies...

 

[MotionMan]

Just say 'no'?

MotionMan

 

[alevasseur14]

That's what I've been doing. It just gets annoying when you're on campus for 8 hours and have to hit 'Cancel' every single time you open Safari or Mail.

Not exactly a deal breaker, I'll admit, just a minor annoyance.

 

[MotionMan]

Turn off asking. I did. If I need wireless, I do a manual search.

Seems to me you would want no search mode just as much, if not more often, as search mode.

MotionMan

 

[alevasseur14]

You might be right. I tried turning it off over the summer but I kept forgetting to check for WiFi when I went somewhere new. I don't think it'd hurt to try again.

 

[EvilYoda]

Well if you accidentally connect to a network once, you know that you can "forget this network", right? That way it won't automatically join you to the network and you'll remain in 3G unless you tell it to join again.

 

[alevasseur14]

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
Well if you accidentally connect to a network once, you know that you can "forget this network", right? That way it won't automatically join you to the network and you'll remain in 3G unless you tell it to join again.

Right. But even if you 'Forget' that network, it will still bring up the menu asking you to join it again.

 

[MotionMan]

Originally posted by: alevasseur14

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
Well if you accidentally connect to a network once, you know that you can "forget this network", right? That way it won't automatically join you to the network and you'll remain in 3G unless you tell it to join again.

Right. But even if you 'Forget' that network, it will still bring up the menu asking you to join it again.

Just say 'no'?

This is not a recording...

MotionMan

 

[alevasseur14]

Originally posted by: MotionMan

Originally posted by: alevasseur14

Originally posted by: EvilYoda
Well if you accidentally connect to a network once, you know that you can "forget this network", right? That way it won't automatically join you to the network and you'll remain in 3G unless you tell it to join again.

Right. But even if you 'Forget' that network, it will still bring up the menu asking you to join it again.

Just say 'no'?

This is not a recording...

MotionMan

I got that. It's not a practical solution. Thanks.

 

[Kmax82]

Yea.. I'd say the easiest solution at the moment is to just turn off WiFi while on campus, or simply turn off the automatic ask to join wifi networks option.

The other option would be to jailbreak and then you can install SBSettings which gives you a nice drop down option to turn off WiFi everywhere on your phone, so you don't have to drill down three layers of menus to get to it. This was the solution I chose and it's been amazing!

 

[alevasseur14]

I've been on the fence when it comes to jailbreaking. I've heard it slows the phone down? I probably wouldn't change themes or anything, I'd just like access to BossPrefs and SBSettings. That probably wouldn't be too bad, right?

 

[Kmax82]

From my limited testing so far, if you don't use themes it doesn't slow down the phone. I only receive subtle slowdowns from themes. For instance, it'll take an extra second to load SMS, or slightly longering response time to exit an app. However I haven't noticed these issues when I'm not using a theme.

 

[Tegeril]

Always turn off automatic ask. It does not make sense to have the phone ask in an area where you know of other wireless networks that will work. Just tell it to remember those and bob's your uncle.

 

[tefleming]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
Always turn off automatic ask. It does not make sense to have the phone ask in an area where you know of other wireless networks that will work. Just tell it to remember those and bob's your uncle.

Leaving "Ask" on is just waiting for things to go pear-shaped or is it sixes and sevens?

I don't have it prompt me for wireless. But, I've got the old one, so I usually notice that it's oppressively slow and go look for a wireless network.

 

[Tegeril]

Haha. I've never used bob's your uncle before and was looking for something ridiculous to tack on the end 🙂

 

[alevasseur14]

Hey everyone. I was just passing some time in the library and I thought I'd update you guys on my terrible, heart wrenching situation... 🙂 There are three wireless networks available no matter where you are on campus. Two of them are free and have the log in page that comes up whenever you try to access them. In addition to having that annoying extra step on my laptop and my phone, the login page is very hit or miss with Firefox. Most of the time I had to keep Safari running just so I could log in properly.

Anyways, on a whim one day last week, I decided to try and join the secure network. I punched in my student ID and my password and to my surprise, it worked! It takes a few seconds any time I join to authenticate but I'm super happy that it works, and it's a a secure connection to boot! Yay!

That's all. Oh, and Bob's your uncle.