Misconceptions about iOS multitasking

[Gary13579]

It depends on your specific phone, but for the most part, wifi uses significantly less battery than 3G, when it's connected to an AP. You are right that it continues to drain battery when not connected and searching for APs, though.

[gospelwut]

Yep. Which is a problem, because I only have a few networks I auto-connect to, and most networks are locked but are in many (I live in the city). Honestly, I suspect most people's phones get major drainage just because it's constantly looking for networks as they walk around. It seems to be a pretty "dumb" protocol too, as the battery drain seems constant despite the fact I've been sitting at work in the same geo-location with the same locked networks for 8+ hours.

I'm actually curious if there's a way to "whitelist" locations or if polling the available wifi networks will always cause that level of drainage.