A couple of beta versions ago, Android 12 rolled out a revamped internet connectivity interface that simplified the process of getting onto a network, regardless of whether it's data or Wi-Fi. The price of that simplification was the annoying removal of the standalone general Wi-Fi toggle. With the newest Beta 4 which was released yesterday, that toggle is back. Whew! It almost didn't make it!

Two issues arose with the removal of the toggle two months ago. If you dug into the full Internet menu settings, you'd have realized that the switch was still there, but hidden under all the networks. This meant you had to go find it every time you needed it. But if you never dug that deep, you were left without a way to turn off Wi-Fi on your device. I'll admit this happened to me yesterday when my home Wi-Fi went down and my phone kept switching to the non-functional Wi-Fi no matter how many times I forced it to connect to my 4G network. I didn't think to dig deep into settings, and I kept missing notifications and untethering from my computer, that I eventually forced my phone to forget the network. There, that solved it.

 

Left: Android 12 beta 2 and 3. Middle & Right: Beta 4. Also notice that the 4G data icon is back.

With the Wi-Fi toggle back in this beta, these issues will be solved. We can turn off any Wi-Fi connectivity with a simple switch, and without giving up on the new Internet menu. Simple. We're also getting back the mobile data indicator, so you can always know which kind of network speed you could expect.

I'm glad these were implemented before Android 12 went into its stable release.

  • Thanks:
  • Eduardo Ribeiro

For more about Android 12, check out our ongoing series coverage here, or bookmark our regularly updated changelog and check back in later. If you want to install the developer preview on your own device, find out how in our Android 12 download guide.