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Comment by richardknop | Hacker News Reader

But there should be a setting in iOS to disable this requirement of wifi to install updates. For people who have unlimited 4G and no wifi/ethernet.

I only have unlimited 4G SIM and all my internet usage is either on my phone or through my other devices using mobile hotspot. I don't want to pay extra money to carriers for home broadband with wifi since I already have super fast unlimited mobile connection (it's fast enough for Twitch/Netflix streaming so I really don't need dedicated line).

I'd like to make this configurable so people like me don't have to go to Starbucks or other places with public wifi to download updates.

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>But there should be a setting in iOS to disable this requirement of wifi to install updates.

You missed complaint #2. While your plan says unlimited, physics doesn't work that way. It's only fast right now because people aren't pulling large update files in all at the same time. I would not want to be in a populated area trying to use the network on update day. Rush hour at train stations is bad enough...

It's a pretty crude mechanism, though. A better system would have the tower tell the phone if it's overloaded or not - or, ideally, the available bandwidth - and the phone would decide whether to download it now or later.

There's more to congestion than just the particular tower you're connected to though.

I do find that highly unlikely though. I sometimes am using dozens or hundreds of GBs in streaming over a week and never got throttled so far.

I’d assume few hundred MBs or even few GBs of updates every couple of weeks can’t be of significance.

I think Netflix, YouTube and Twitch traffic are much bigger concern for carriers.

I connect my phone via my 4G router when I need to large stuff from Apple, and it hurts my soul every time

What happens if you make a WiFi hotspot and download it to a device over that?

That’s a workaround. I can connect my MacBook Pro to my iPhone hotspot over Bluetooth and download updates on desktop iTunes app because MacBook think it’s using WiFi even though in reality it’s all 4G. Then I can download and install updates to the iPhone from iTunes. Crude workaround but it’s possible.

iOS doesn't lack such a setting because of an oversight for the past nine years. To carriers, there is no such thing as "unlimited" internet.

Depends on the time. I'm happy carriers wouldn't mind downloads as long as they happen between 1am-5am. Apple could introduce a feature to allow cell downloads but only do so during off-peak hours.

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