http://tidbits.com/ People are reporting that their iPhones are sucking down massive amounts of data over cellular networks for unknown causes. Apple’s Podcasts app was suspected first, and while it is problematic, it also doesn’t seem to be the entire story. What is chewing up data and racking up big cellular bills? en-us Copyright 2012 TidBITS Publishing Inc. Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 EST Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 EST editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) http://tidbits.com/images/tb_logo_152x55.png http://tidbits.com/ 55 152 TidBITS badge http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_17474 Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:55:24 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_17474
I did a before-and-after test of the URL given below, surrounding my update to iOS 6.1 from 6.0.1. Before, I see a video near the top on the right side of the page, just below the banner ad, briefly showing the "play" button, but then downloading and playing on its own. After installing iOS 6.1, the video no longer began playing on its own. Subsequent testing confirms that the video had not been quietly downloaded, either.

www.nytimes.com/pages/automobiles/index.html
]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16561 Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:59:24 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16561 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16546 Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:17:22 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16546
I'm really left wondering why Dataman showed such a high cellular data usage (69.1MB), yet AT&T didn't bill me for that.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16545 Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:49:26 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16545
In their FAQ they state "The list of apps is sorted in order of activity.", thus it *appears* that the lowest app is the most recent app active.

They go on to state "We're working on adding more statistics to this list, including the data used by each app, in the next free update." I sure look forward to that.

An interesting thing I've noted in the hourly stats, is that while I was asleep, there is activity showing BOTH as cellular data, and as wi-fi data. Thus, some app or apps are doing something in the background via the cellular network, even though wi-fi is available. It is much less usage than wi-fi, nevertheless it is consistent.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16542 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:44:03 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16542 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16541 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:21:50 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16541 http://xvision.me a version of DataMan Pro was released on 13 November that restores per-app monitoring, with other benefits. I'm guessing that Tom was fortunate enough to run across it on its first day out, and that Adam's comment reflected the previous version. According to the website, it constitutes a "new app" since Apple removed the previous version, and has to be purchased again if you had the previous version. I'm guessing it won't badge your App Store icon, so you either have to hear about it from someone (thanks, Tom!) or be looking for it to have returned to the App Store.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16539 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:08:02 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16539 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16538 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:46:29 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16538 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16537 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:44:48 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16537 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16535 Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:04:09 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16535
Note that _during this period_ updated wife's 4S to iOS6 (on 10/31), so first two suspicious large data usages are _not_ related to having the updated OS. (Thus far my iPhone 4 usage typical. I updated it to iOS6 on 11/8.)

On phone for nearly 2 hours tonight, being bounced around between AppleCare & ATT, but they offered no truly helpful technical assistance.

DESPERATELY NEED BANDWIDTH TRACKING PER APP.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16438 Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:02:07 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16438
I will not get another Apple phone regardless of what it is or isn't. They're late to the party and who really cares if it's a 3 or a 4 or a 5. It's just not worth it. They just want our money. Oh, and they will come out with a 6. You can bet on it....]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16349 Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:20:31 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16349
http://tidbits.com/article/13303]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16346 Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:19:54 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16346
Short answer from my side:

Problem:

ca. 30MByte per hour up/download

iPhone usage and standby: nearly the same numbers

Battery life: 2-2.5h "standby". Backside of the iPhone was warm.

Apple Genius Bar: it is the provider

Provider: it is Apple

From my perspective: neither apple nor the provider

After a deep investigation (and your article) I found 2 root-causes:

1) Safari bookmarks: the plist file has had a size of 3,5MB (uncountable of bookmarks, and furthermore very very old bookmarks)

2) My companies Exchange account.

Solution:

1) Bookmarks: I have deleted the old bookmarks, exported the rest of the bookmarks, reset of Safari, import the bookmarks.

2) Deleted the account: no result. deleted all e-mails accounts (Exchange, iCloud and a second private account)

Result:

After that all everything was fine.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16297 Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:47:42 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16297 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16229 Fri, 19 Oct 2012 04:05:23 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16229 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16225 Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:15:45 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16225 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16221 Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:26:55 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16221 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16220 Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:18:51 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16220 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16204 Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:57:41 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16204 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16170 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:13:20 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16170 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16168 Mon, 15 Oct 2012 09:56:47 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16168 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16152 Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:36:18 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16152 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16053 Mon, 08 Oct 2012 10:24:17 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16053 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16015 Sat, 06 Oct 2012 17:33:27 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16015 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_16008 Sat, 06 Oct 2012 14:34:57 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_16008
If you back up to your Mac using iTunes, you can find it in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice. You can also view it on your iPhone under Settings/General/About/Diagnostics & Usage.

In this file, towards the end, you'll see entries that look something like

netstats.counts.TCP.en0.KBIn.com.apnews.mobilenews
3836

and

netstats.counts.TCP.pdp.ip0.KBIn.com.apple.mobilemail
66

These two entries tell me that the AP News app downloaded about 3.8 MB on WiFi, and that Mail downloaded about 66 KB via cellular, for that day. There are similar entries for uploaded data and for the UDP protocol.

(I seem to recall seeing these with iOS 5 as well, but no longer have a device to check.)]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_15983 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:09:57 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_15983 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_15946 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:43:17 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_15946 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_15941 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:12:34 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_15941 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_15939 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 11:51:20 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_15939
Like Colin above, I also thought I noticed a big jump in data use with turn-by-turn directions but I wasn't sure.

Needless to say, this is pretty unsustainable.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13304?rss#comments_15937 Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:03:33 EST http://tidbits.com/article/13304#comments_15937