Why does the podcast app use data to play a downloaded podcast?

Whenever I play a podcast on my iPhone it starts using wi-fi or cellular data. These are podcasts that are on my phone, not in the cloud, not being streamed. I have limited cellular and wi-fi bandwidth so I have to turn both cellular data and the wi-fi off when I play podcasts.


Ideas or suggestions appreciated.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Nov 22, 2013 7:40 PM

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Nov 29, 2013 6:24 AM in response to JimFerguson

I filed a report at http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html .


I hope more comes out of it than my trip to the genius bar did.


Here's the report I filed:


Since iOS 7.0.3 was released, I have been experiencing high data usage, both cellular and wi-fi, whenever I use the Music or Podcasts apps on my iPhone 5. I am now running iOS 7.0.4 and the problem is still present.


I've detailed the problem in this thread on the discussion board:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5591663?answerId=23943379022#23943379022


I have limited bandwidth for wi-fi due to a 25 GB/month cap on my internet via satellite service. Before we isolated the problem to theses two apps I was using over a GB a day just on my iPhone and with other internet activities we would have used our monthly bandwidth in just a few days.


The Genius and I restored my phone to factory conditions, and even after that the problem still occurred. She advised me to report the problem here.


Thanks to all those who commented for your ideas.

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Nov 27, 2013 10:37 PM in response to JimFerguson

Follow-up


I spent an hour today at the Genius bar, of which I had maybe 10-15 minutes of the Genuis's attention. I left with a phone that was wiped of all data but when I put a podcast and some music on it, it was exhibiting the same problem that It was at the start. The genius did not listen to my description of the problem, focus on the data I showed her, claimed the problem was in the third party software I had installed even after I showed her it occurred with or without the software, and only followed her script for handling iPhone problems. The time spent with the genius was totally wasted.


Since iOS 7.0.3, my iPhone 5 has been using wi-fi or cellular data whenever I play music or a podcast that has been previously downloaded on my MBP and synced on my phone. The only way to prevent this is to turn off wi-fi and cellular data. I have to do this because I not only have limited cellular data, my broadband is limited too.


I expected better today and was sorely disappointed.

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Nov 28, 2013 5:09 PM in response to AmishCake

Thanks, AmishCake.


Yes I've turned off cellular data for Podcasts and Music. The only way I can use the iPhone to play either of them is to turn off both cellular data and wi-fi. That limits its usefulness greatly. I did not have this problem until the 7.0.3 update.

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Nov 28, 2013 5:40 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks, Lawrence. Yesterday at the store, the Genius and I, after wiping my phone, confirmed it by putting on a couple of podcasts and a few songs. We saw that both the Podcast app and Music app are using cellular data by checking Settings > Cellular, and and with DataMan Pro and our router's software I can see that wi-fi does the same thng.

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Jan 26, 2014 9:12 AM in response to JimFerguson

I just posted in another thread about this issue, for only for the cellular data side. Apparently there are TWO switches that appear to control podcast player’s cellular data usage: one in the podcast app, and one in the settings-cellular section. I found and turned off the second one but can’t confirm yet if that really worked. But in my case, the WiFi is “unlimited” while the cellular data is not.


I’m not sure if this will help your situation, but I had a similar problem with unusually high monthly data usage with no apps running. But the device was an older Blackberry on the same carrier (VZW). I locked down all apps from any network connection and set them to prompt. The one that prompted was the Google Voice app that had been logged-out and set NOT to poll. Google apparently hard-coded the Google Voice app to free-load off my cellular data without my permission, running up my data expenses with regular monthly overage charges.


To apply that to your situation, you might try snooping your home network with a packet sniffer to find the ports and destinations where the iPhone apps are trying to connect. Most consumer routers have some means of blocking them, which might help solve your streaming data issues.

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Why does the podcast app use data to play a downloaded podcast?

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