Apple has filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a new system that ranks public Wi-Fi networks based on multiple criteria.
Apple would collect data about Wi-Fi networks without identifying the user and their exact location. The data collected by Apple would allow it to map these Wi-Fi networks and their characteristics to “improve the efficiency of the interactions between user devices and the detected access points.”
The patent further illustrates that iOS users would see labels such as high quality, popular, and suspicious in the Settings app to describe a Wi-Fi network.
The system would also prompt users if they want to connect to a popular Wi-Fi network available.
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While Apple filing a patent is not a new thing, and features based on many patents never see the light of day, the company’s push towards privacy makes it likely that the iPhone-maker will implement the feature to alert users if they are connecting their devices to an unreliable network.
