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Android -> Auto manage Wifi vs. carrier network?

I was reading an article about how the iPhone will automatically connect to WiFi instead of using the carrier network, when WiFi is available. As well, it manages the WiFi on the phone in a manner which minimizes battery usage.
Anyone know if any of the Android Phones do this?
Related to that, even if it doesn't automatically do that: If we are in a free WiFi spot that we know about and turn on WiFi, will the Android phone use the WiFi as prioritiy over the carrier network, thereby negating need to turn off access to the carrier network?

ewingr said:
I was reading an article about how the iPhone will automatically connect to WiFi instead of using the carrier network, when WiFi is available. As well, it manages the WiFi on the phone in a manner which minimizes battery usage.
Anyone know if any of the Android Phones do this?
Related to that, even if it doesn't automatically do that: If we are in a free WiFi spot that we know about and turn on WiFi, will the Android phone use the WiFi as prioritiy over the carrier network, thereby negating need to turn off access to the carrier network?
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If you have 3g open, and you enter a wifi area, there are apps you can download which will immediately connect to that wifi spot without you opening Wifi, but those apps drain the battery and will connect at any wifi that you have previously used, thus becoming annoying. I tried it last year on my Android device.
It is much better to simply activate wifi alone, then it will connect to that free wifi spot alone IF you have previously connected to it.
I'll give two examples: At home when I connect my Android device to my wireless router for the first time, it will ask me for password. Then it saves it, so that if I close wifi, it will open 3g alone, but then if I re-open WIFI on my device, it will connect automatically as it saves the password of all wifi spots you have, and it shows you also the list of all saved spots.
The same thing goes for open free wifi spots, first time you connect to it normally without a password, second time it will re-connect alone as long as you have Wifi opened on your Android Device. I wouldn't have my cell to connect to any wifi alone without me opening wifi as it drains battery a lot.
As soon as you open Wifi, and there's an open wifi place or a private one (provided you have entered the password before), your cell will automatically connect to it and will no longer use carrier network until you shut off WIFI.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Much appreciated.
Actually, pretty much what I expected to hear.

T-Mobile My Account App Disables Wifi...can't reenable

I just got the mytouch4g, and was playing with the apps. I opened the my accounts app and it said something about it only works over cell network and not wifi, and that wifi will be disabled until the app is closed.
Well, now I can't re-enable wifi. And apps don't truely "close" on android.
Wifi is turned on, network is remembered from previous use, password is correct. I can see the network but I can't connect to it. Wifi status remains "Disconnected"

Try hitting "forget" when you hold down you network name and try reconnecting it again that's what i had to do. Hope this helps

thanks, looks like that did it. first bug encountered...i hope any others are as easily resolved.

Also, check the market for an upgraded version of My Account. The newer versions do not require it to disable WiFi to operate.

What is the WiFi Scan Process name?

Quick question/help. My phone wifi can not seem to be able to detect any new wifi network at all. But my already known networks from when I set up this phone in the beginning still work as long as I m at home. So I came to the conclusion that I have turned some kind of process off that have caused this problem. I use TiBu, Amplify Battery extender.
When I use other Wi-Fi apps, Wifi Fixer. I'm able to see other networks that are normally there.
So I m just wondering what is the process that takes care of this wifi scan, or this thing that allows the phone to show what it detected.

WiFi sleeping with modern routers when the screen is turned off

Does anyone know how to prevent this from happening? I updated my router with modern WMM and such. Now when I'm connected to my home wifi my phone decides to sleep the wifi when I turn off my screen.
This prevents whatsapp web working as intended. Also when downloading files and turning screen off the downloads just stop due to the lack of internet connection. I know it polls the wifi every minute or so, but it is not optimal behaviour in any way.
Mostly it's annoying when using web interfaces with apps, i.e. whatsapp web. I want my messages to be sent immediately (like before with my old router) and not when my phone decides that now it might be a good time to check if anything needs internet. This also delays receiving of messages of any messaging services that uses internet.
I have given whatsapp limitless data and excluded it from battery saving. So that does not help.

Best way to connect non SIM head unit to internet?

Trying to get internet access on my head unit without paying for a hotspot. I'm aware of PDANet and have used it, but it's sometimes unreliable to get a connection at first and requires restarting it several times. I'm looking for a more automatic solution that will connect as soon as I start the car. Any advice?

I bought a Huawei E8372 LTE stick. It provides both a WiFi access point and a USB ethernet interface that works with my Eonon GA9498B, so I basically disabled the WiFi entirely for the time being. Setting up the stick can easily be done by inserting the SIM card, plugging it into your computer, navigating with your browser to the IP address mentioned in the manual; it's advisable to deactivate the SIM PIN so the stick can just boot and establish the mobile connection without having to enter the PIN every time you turn off and on your car. Boot time for the stick is 20-30s max, so the connection is basically already available as soon as the radio's main screen appears.
Just watch out: I haven't yet found a possibility to mark the ethernet connection as metered in Android, so apps which have different data transfer behavior depending on whether you're on a WiFi or a mobile connection will go on full data blast mode if you don't tell them not to. Take Spotify, for example: If you have marked songs for download, the app will synchronize all changes right away via the LTE connection, even if you've configured Spotify to only do that on WiFi connections. So what I do is putting Spotify in offline mode by default, and only change that when I'm at home and the radio is connected to my WiFi (which luckily takes precedence over the USB-ethernet connection). Same goes for my HERE WeGo offline maps: I configured it to download them manually, so it only checks for map updates and notifies me, and I can download them when I'm home. Google Maps is pretty spare about its data usage anyway, so no need to change anything here. I also disabled automatic updates in Play Store, so it just notifies me of available updates which I can then install when I'm back home.
This COULD be avoided by activating the stick's WiFi hotspot, connecting the radio via WiFi and then, in Android's data usage settings, mark the WiFi network as metered. I tried that once, and it wasn't all too reliable - Android keeps forgetting these settings irregularly (the WiFi is shown as metered in Android's settings after I changed that setting; will stay like that for a while whenever I take a look again; and at some indeterminate point will show "Automatic" again, which means it's being treated like your cable router in your living room again) and doesn't tell you so at all, so apps might first behave correctly (i.e. like they're using mobile network), and later recognize their environment as being in an unlimited WiFi network and download everything they do in the background, eating up your mobile data. Thus I rather control each app's settings in this regard manually.