A teardown isn’t a teardown until we’ve found everything right? Well, this one’s a day or two old, but still an interesting one. In Android Police‘s meticulous teardown of the Galaxy S4 Google Edition‘s Android 4.3 ROM, they’ve found that there is code in there that will keep your Wi-Fi on, even when you turn it ‘off”.
The code suggests that even when you turn your Wi-Fi off, your phone will still “let Google‘s location service and other apps scan for networks”. This is followed by the statement “To improve location accuracy and for other purposes” which suggests the purposes of leaving Wi-Fi on will be to surreptitiously use your Wi-Fi to map out your surroundings for Google. Don’t worry though; if you don’t want to be potentially giving away your location at all times, there will be a way to properly turn off your Wi-Fi via the Advanced menu and deactivating ‘Scanning always available’. Simple enough right?
For those people who might not know about their Wi-Fi not truly being off, this would intuitively suggest that the constant scanning would be at least a small drain on your battery, so it will be interesting to see what this function is actually for or if it even still exists when an official Android 4.3 build comes out.
What do you make of these Wi-Fi shenanigans? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Source: Android Police
