Lamejournal.com - Watch iPhone 5 Cellular Data Carefully

[TeaLeaf]

Courtesy of my brother Tugs' blog page, here's some interesting iPhone 5 info about data usage that shows up on the log, but that is not being used by my brother.  So how is the iPhone5 using his data allowance even when he has it set up to not use it?

Read his blog here

...and if you can tell him what is using his data then please respond!

[kregoron]

Courtesy of my brother Tugs' blog page, here's some interesting iPhone 5 info about data usage that shows up on the log, but that is not being used by my brother.  So how is the iPhone5 using his data allowance even when he has it set up to not use it?

Read his blog here

...and if you can tell him what is using his data then please respond!

Rumors are that ios treats data allowance different, it differs up and down.. So if the limit is set for 1gig, it sets the limit to 1 gig up, and 1 gig down..
That said, i havent updated my ipadnto ios 6 yet ( i like google maps ) but ill try and look tomorrow at work


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[smilodon]

I know that the default in Android used to be that WiFi would turn off when the screen timed out. I don't think that's the case any more and there was an option to turn it off in the settings. Maybe something similar is happening on the iPhone although the 19.5mb chunks of data seems very odd.

[sulky_uk]

maybe its downloading all the new map tiles.....1 at a time ;-)

[kregoron]

Just checked the data plans on the 4 Iphone5 we got in for testing... their all showing the same weird data usage, tho none has any music to be synced from iCloud, will attempt to get a capture of the data being used...

[TeaLeaf]

Well, here's Tugs' follow up on why he thinks his is eating data:

iTunes Match Uses Cellular Data Even When You Say No

Click HERE to read what he has to say about it at Lamejournal.com.

[kregoron]

Well, here's Tugs' follow up on why he thinks his is eating data:

iTunes Match Uses Cellular Data Even When You Say No

Click HERE to read what he has to say about it at Lamejournal.com.

Yeah i read that post, but im wondering why were seeing the same data usage on test phones... wondering if the same problem applies to maps and other data where options to only use wifi is set.. that would be a BIG problem for apple

[tugs]

I sure hope not... but if it's ignoring the settings in one app, there's no reason it wouldn't ignore them in another.

I don't know if you saw the feature in iOS 6 Beta that would have allowed WiFi to Cellular roaming when the WiFi signal was not performing - see here for details: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/09/ios-6-beta-adds-wi-fi-plus-cellular-option-to-increase-data-reliability/

That feature was not included in the final iOS6, but I'm wondering - since the code base to allow this kind of roaming has got its hooks into the networking stack - whether they screwed up and left that feature enabled. Pure speculation of course, and the option to not use cellular should STILL be honored.

[tugs]

I've dug around a bit, and it looks like this may have been a problem in the past too - i.e. in iOS5. It's not clear that Apple actually acknowledged this as a bug, but the reported behavior is that the "use cellular data" option certainly works in terms of stopping the Music app grabbing music from the cloud via 3G (e.g. if you Shuffle all tracks), but if you click the cloud button to sync manually, it seems to ignore the setting. So it might have happened before, but now two things exacerbate it:

1) LTE means your data plan gets eaten up way faster than before;
2) The iPhone 5 WiFi problems means than even while in your house, the phone is jumping on to LTE when it really has no reason to.

[kregoron]

actually, we did a bit of testing today, monitoring the trafic from the Iphone 5, the usage kept climbing, the funny thing was, we had it on Wifi all day too, but acording to the WLC (wireless lan controller) log the phone kept bouncing on and off the controller, in intervals exactly where the LTE/3G usage were..
im guessing the dead intervals where the phone drops off the wifi, the phone "thinks" its still on wifi and use whatever connection it can, as the phone kept showing showing wifi on icon all day..

[tugs]

Depressingly that sounds entirely logical. However, even when you get totally away from WiFi (i.e. go out and about), nothing changes - it still keeps chewing through the data. It's not just that it's finishing existing downloads either - it starts new ones!

Thanks for reporting back on your testing - that's very cool!

[kregoron]

Depressingly that sounds entirely logical. However, even when you get totally away from WiFi (i.e. go out and about), nothing changes - it still keeps chewing through the data. It's not just that it's finishing existing downloads either - it starts new ones!

Thanks for reporting back on your testing - that's very cool!

Its quite scary to be honest.. it just rips apart data plans.

[tugs]

I updated the blog page after I dug a bit deeper and spoke to AppleCare. TLDR: It's a feature.

[kregoron]

I updated the blog page after I dug a bit deeper and spoke to AppleCare. TLDR: It's a feature.

rofl ye id claim that too if my os went haywire and started hammering data without being allowed too... CUSTOM FEATURE! YOU WILL LOVE IT!!

[TeaLeaf]

Nice investigation folks and a good warning to any iPhone 4 & 5 users apparently!  I think data is a bit cheaper in the UK compared to the US from what I have heard though, so it might be less worrying in the UK.   Truly unlimited data can be bought quite cheaply - an all inclusive package with ridiculous minutes, texts, intra-carrier calls and all the data you want is about £30 per month.