[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JeanPierre

What is the option that we are after? We being those of us that wish to enable wifi to use, say, the browser but never have the device sync? Is there one?

The section in the options is entitled "BACKGROUND SYNC", has one checkbox, and yet there appears to be no way to completely disable background syncing when wifi is enabled.

You are completely right, there is no option to turn off all syncs. Should there be? Possibly. Does the existing sync related option need better explanation about what it is? Yes.

But, here is the thing. At the moment, there is only one option available about syncing. It does something specific. There is enough information on the settings dialog to work out what it does. Especially after someone tries it and it doesn't do what you (meaning you, JeanPierre in this case) thinks it does. And, no matter how hard everyone argues that this option should do something else, it doesn't do that thing. This is all that I have been arguing about.

What amuses you is your business, but I would have thought the tone of this was beneath you. I don't think it's a case of people not reading the messages in front of them. The longest description says "When daily Automatic Sync is on, your books, articles and software will remain up to date". It is not reasonable to infer from this that there will be other non-daily automatic syncs executed without user invocation.

Let us consider a hypothetical that uses the same language to see it if it will make it more clear. Let's say your phone has an option to automatically download free music into your music library released daily with a checkbox that says "Automatic free music download", and a message below it that says "When daily Automatic free music download is enabled, your music library will remain up to date with the latest free music available in the music store". Do you also think it's reasonable to infer from that language that you can expect unwanted music to be downloaded to your music library whenever your phone feels like it?

Please go back and read my posts. I have said at least a couple of times that I agree that the Sync settings page isn't completely clear. And I agree that if you quickly look at that page, it is understandable that someone might misinterpret it. But, the setting doesn't work that way. And it is unreasonable that once someone discovers that something doesn't work they way they first thought, that they don't investigate what is going on. And, as bad as the page might be, there is enough information on to work out what does if you paid any attention to what actually happened.

And for you example, probably not. But, that isn't the only thing on the screen. The timing of the syncs is there. And you are stretching the analogy. Without further explanation, that "free music" is downloading random free music. The sync on the devices is downloading things that I explicitly selected (paid for, chose free, added preview, borrowed from library). I would not expect the two downloads to work exactly the same. And to be honest, if you offer me "free" anything, I look for the catch.