If your iPhone started leaning on cellular data after the iOS 27 update, the switch you remember turning off has a new name and a new address. Wi-Fi Assist is gone as a setting, replaced by Connectivity Assist, and the toggle now sits in Settings > Wi-Fi instead of at the bottom of Settings > Cellular.
Apple documented the change in a support article, About Connectivity Assist, published September 14, the day iOS 27 shipped. Apple’s wording leaves no room for doubt. Connectivity Assist “replaces and supersedes Wi-Fi Assist, previously found in Cellular settings.”
Where the setting lives now
Apple gives three steps, and the first is just the update itself:
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- Update your iPhone to the latest iOS or iPadOS.
- In Settings, tap Wi-Fi, then make sure Wi-Fi is turned on.
- Scroll down and turn Connectivity Assist on or off.
The Wi-Fi screen is the whole trick. Anyone hunting at the foot of Settings > Cellular, where Wi-Fi Assist sat for years, will scroll past nothing but app-by-app data toggles and conclude the option was removed. It was not. It moved to the screen that actually deals with Wi-Fi, which is arguably where it belonged all along.
There is also a setting the old feature never had. Apple notes that if you want to stay on Wi-Fi for one particular router, an ad blocker being its example, you can turn Connectivity Assist off for that network alone rather than everywhere.
What Apple says it does
Apple’s one-line summary at the top of the document is “Use cellular data in addition to Wi-Fi for a more reliable internet connection.” The longer description is more specific: Connectivity Assist “uses cellular data to improve your connection when Wi-Fi is slow or unusable”, in places Apple lists as your backyard or driveway, coffee shops, airports and sports venues.
Apple’s companion page on using cellular data, refreshed the same day, puts it this way: when Connectivity Assist is on, cellular data is used along with Wi-Fi to keep your internet connection reliable when Wi-Fi is weak, busy, or not connected to the internet.
It does not run everywhere. Apple says Connectivity Assist “isn’t used when your iPhone is international roaming, in cellular Low Data Mode, or with some third-party apps that stream audio and video.” If you travel, that exclusion is the one to remember.
It is already on for most people who updated
Here is the part that catches owners out. Apple states it plainly: “If Wi-Fi Assist was on when you updated your software, Connectivity Assist is on by default.” Wi-Fi Assist shipped enabled and most people never opened that screen, so on most iPhones the successor arrived switched on, under a name nobody had seen before, on a page nobody was looking at.
The flip side is spelled out too: “If Wi-Fi Assist was off, you can turn Connectivity Assist on manually.” Turn the old one off at some point and nothing came on behind your back.
Apple attaches one warning and no numbers: “With Connectivity Assist turned on, you might use more cellular data.” There is no figure on the page for how much more, and none anywhere else on Apple’s site, so any specific amount you see quoted is somebody’s estimate rather than Apple’s.
How to see what it is costing you in data
If you would rather measure the effect than guess at it, the counter is where it has always been. Open Settings > Cellular and scroll down. Every app lists the cellular data it has used, and below that list is Reset Statistics, which sets the counters back to zero. Apple names that button on its cellular data page, and it is Reset Statistics, not any wording about data usage.
That gives you a clean baseline. Tap Reset Statistics, leave Connectivity Assist alone for a few days on the networks you actually use, then read the total. If the number bothers you, turn the feature off in Settings > Wi-Fi and reset again for a fair comparison. The same screen also lets you switch cellular data off for individual apps, which is the narrower tool when one or two are doing the damage.
One caveat on that counter. It does not clear itself when your billing period rolls over. It counts from whenever you last tapped Reset Statistics, so treat it as a measuring stick, not as your bill. Apple says the same thing and points you at your carrier for billing-period figures.
What this does not explain
Reports from users about Wi-Fi behaving differently since the update have been circulating, and it is tempting to hang them on this feature. Apple has not. The support document describes what Connectivity Assist does, where it lives and what happened to your old preference, and it stops there. It does not say the feature drops Wi-Fi connections or causes any particular symptom, and nobody should say so on Apple’s behalf.
Searching Apple’s site for the old name will not help either. Apple retired its About Wi-Fi Assist article, support document 102228, and that address now redirects to the Connectivity Assist page, so the old instructions pointing at Cellular settings are no longer on Apple’s site to follow. Third-party copies of them still are, and those will send you to a screen where the switch no longer is.
Either way, checking takes about ten seconds now that you know which screen to open. If you want the wider picture of what landed on September 14 and what is arriving on new hardware, our event recap covers the software and the devices together.
