One of the worst cases of this is the 'Airplane mode' toggle on a Kindle. Airplane mode turns off wifi but the icon is an airplane that says 'On' when airplane mode is on. When you click it, it turns to 'Off'. But what you really want to do is turn the wifi off and on, which is the opposite of the icon. 'On' means the wifi is off, 'Off' means the wifi is on. Terrible.
Airplane mode status and Wi-Fi status are separate statuses. Airplane mode can be on and it tells you nothing one way or the other about the actual state of Wi-Fi. This ultimately comes down to some Kindles being like phones and having more than 1 radio where you may want airplane mode on except for the Wi-Fi radio if you plan on using in flight Wi-Fi.
Airplane mode is a convenience to conserve battery during a flight. If you judge it by how well it acts as a universal radios on/off switch it will measure accordingly.
