Q: Unknown data usage early morning

snolan wrote:
If that application has location services enabled, or periodically reloads it's data from the internet, or trickles in new advertising because it's a free ad-supported application - you will continue consuming battery power and network usage.

Background applications cannot continue to use your network connection unless they are completing a task or using VOIP. The only way an app multitasks is the following:
•Background Audio (no data connection)
•VOIP (data while in use, possibly some data used to maintain connection)
•Location (which notifies you with the compass arrow next to the battery icon, and does not use network data)
•Local Notifications (all local, not data connection)
•Task Completion (if you started something like sending an email, flickr upload, or tweet, it will complete, but once that's done, no more data connection)
•Fast App Switching (app suspends in memory, no data connection)

Battery use can be affected, but unless your using VOIP, it is near impossible to have large data transfers unknowingly in the background.

Ars Technica iOS 4 Review

If your screen is locked, your WiFi connection becomes unavailable, which means that the increased network usage is carried by the 3G network and consumes your data plan even though you are powering up next to your WiFi base station.

I believe this is a batter saving measure, but I agree, it would be nice if it stayed on. I thought I read that iOS 4 maintained a WiFi connection while locked, but I guess it does not.

The temporary fix is to take the time to learn how iPhone multi-tasking works and shut down any unneeded applications that are running:

• 
  
• double tap the home button to bring up the task bar
• 
  
• press and hold any application that is running but you no longer want to be running
• 
  
• then press the minus sign on that application to actually stop it from running
• 
  
• target any streaming, location aware, and advertising supported applications first
• 
  

This is handy for people to know, but it isn't entirely necessary as there is little background data use by multitasking apps.

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What bothers me most about the situation is that AT&T does not seem to know how their system works. I tried an experiment last night and turned off Cellular Data in the Settings app. Sure enough, at 2:04AM, there's a 1151KB data transfer marked as "sent."
So there seems to be a few things going on here:
1.) This is counting towards your data use, despite the statement made earlier by AT&T.
2.) There seems to be an inconsistent threshold for marking data use on your bill. This is understandable as you don't necessarily want to see hundreds or thousands of individual data usage lines on your bill for each day. However, sometimes you will get intermittent data usage lines throughout the day, sometimes it seems to only occur between 1AM and 4AM. This inconsistency leads me to really distrust the accuracy of the data usage marked on AT&T bills.
3.) All data seems to now be marked "sent" regardless of whether it's an upload or download. This makes it even more difficult to understand how I'm using data based on my bill.

And the worse part about this whole situation is that what ever their data billing system is doing is apparently not common knowledge in the company, as evidenced by official statements made to Gizmodo and the numerous accounts of ill-informed customer service reported in this thread.

I'm going to try something tomorrow and keep Cellular Data off for the day. If I still see any data line items the following morning, I'll really know something is clearly wrong. The next day, I'll keep wifi off and see if I get intermittent usage reported throughout the day, just one lump-sum at 2AM, or a combination of both. I might also reset my data statistics on the device and see how they compare. I really want to know exactly what's going on if I'm on a limited data plan…

like described in this article and quote:
"Every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it...."

whole story:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2553828,CST-NWS-iphone01.article

I appreciate your concern for the potential privacy implications of that story, but I fail to see how this relates at all to this thread, especially my post.

the iPhone stores images, snippets of the maps, so this is data transfer, and also the guy mentions that other apps are sending a lot of data to track the users.
this could explain the large unknown data usage.

According to the story, those images are stored on the device, not transmitted. The third party apps they mention is about storing things like browsing history +on the device+.

The only reference the story makes to anything actually leaving the device over the air waves is "that photos posted online might not only include GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken, but also the serial number of the phone that took it."

The reason the screen shots are taken of the Maps app on exit is for the animated transition as you launch the app the next time. I believe this is also the case for any app that uses Fast App Switching in iOS 4. Again, these pictures are not being transmitted, only stored locally, so would not incur any data transfer with regards to AT&T.

I'm still not convinced that the iPhone is switching to 3g when the screen is locked. My testing isn't showing it happens. I know people have said that it does. I know the Apple store rep told me it does. I know some folks (and I've seen it too - but only rarely) say that when you first wake the iPhone, the 3g symbol shows at the top before switching to wifi symbol.

Several days ago, I set the iPhone to download mail every hour and went to bed. Wifi was on - the phone was put to sleep. Overnight, there was only one 20k download reported on the ATT site.

I'm still confused as to when ATT assesses me for downloads.

Their site seemed to correctly charge me for about 3+MB usage yesterday when I was out of the house for about 2 hours and read email and surfed a few webpages.

None of this still answers why my usage last month was 194mb when I was sitting near wifi for 90+% of the time and in the first 11 days of my current cycle, I'm at 50mb - (and most of the 50 MB was expected - while I was away from wifi for 5 days).

ATT should show us which apps are sending/receiving this data so we can isolate what the heck is going on. I've turned off ALL notifications (which seems to be helping) and I reboot my phone most nights so no background apps might possibly be getting data.

Not sure but I think GPS apps do use cell data when in background -- right?

But beyond that - I am going to do a similar experiment, turn off 3G and all cell data, turn off location services totally, turn off push and automatic fetch of e mail, and run like that for a few days and see what data usage is charged. I just spoke with an ATT rep who told me there should be NO data use if I am set up like this.

I believe she's right

but what you won't get with that setup is visual voicemail - you'll have to call to hear your messages and you won't get notified of new voice messages.

Turn off cellular data and you lose visual voicemail

Please, please, you sound like AT&T helpdesk.....

Can we get this clear? its NOT iphone 3G, 3GS, nor 4 or even OS 3.x or 4.x

I have two phones, iphone 3G, one with iOS4 and other with 3.2 and they all do the same thing. so drop the multitask, maps, or background tasks as a possible cause for this problem (re: Unknown data usage early morning)

They might be the cause for other LARGE transfers anytime but please keep in mind the topic of this thread.... unknown data usage EARLY morning.....

It is as confusing as it can be already, don't add to it.

Message was edited by: adala

Good point - I agree. I'll just lurk. It does seem to me though that if you are getting late night charges even if your phone is set up for no data use of any kind it might serve as one little piece of information that might help solve the puzzle.

Message was edited by: rpg51

I didn't direct the post at you, rpg51, it was someone earlier: snolan.

and yes, if you turn off celluar data, location and 3G, you DO NOT get the unknown data usage but you also don't get voicemail, mails, or any regular function. You might as well put your phone to airplane mode before you sleep. But this is an unacceptable solution!!!

I've wiped a phone clean, no thrid-party apps, and it still does it!

Message was edited by: adala

Well, has this issue been raised in this thread and might it explain the data transfers: (link to full article - http://www.tuaw.com/category/apple)

"-Apple details location information sharing

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jul 20th, 2010
Apple had to do some explaining recently -- after a House of Representatives probe into the company's privacy policy came up, the company sent a twelve-page letter to the members of Congress, going into detail on what all of the legalese in the company's privacy policy actually means. The biggest takeaway is that Apple does collect location data from your iPhone -- every 24 hours, an encrypted batch of locations for cell towers, Wi-Fi access points, and GPS coordinates are hooked up to a zip code and sent back to Apple. This is all true -- we've heard from customers who've noticed the daily batch of information sent out over their iPhone's data plan."

Message was edited by: rpg51

hi everyone,

i am actually not having the same issue as everyone, but my wife is. i did click the button to agree to send apple data when i activated it. i can't get the dialog box (for data reporting) to pop back up, no matter what i try. i have gotten it to pop up for my phone, but not hers. here is what i have tried (no particular order):

1. right clicking the phone and selecting 'reset warnings,' then resync or un-plug/plug-in
2. preferences > advanced > reset all warnings
3. restore
4. resetting all settings and data from phone
5. soft reset
6. deleting all backups in itunes
7. calling apple care, only to be told by a senior tech, to try step 8
8. uninstalling and reinstalling itunes

Now to my question. Can anyone help me figure out how to reset the dialog box so i can select disagree?

i am well aware this might not solve the problem, but figure it is worth a shot. the apple tech told me that his best understanding of the issue is that att is collecting data every night, but i didn't feel confident he knew what he was saying. nor does that explain the discrepancy between the usage reported on the phone and by att.

anyhow, thanks for any help you guys can provide.

steve

With the phone disconnected, you might try:

With iTunes open, Click on iTunes (top menu) and choose Preferences
Click the Advanced tab
Click Reset Warnings
Click OK
Attach and sync phone

Hello all.

Data continues to exit my iPhone 4 in the wee hours of the AM. No new updates from ATT or Apple which I consider open issues.

My latest experiment was to: Opt Out at Apple, Factory Restore of the iPhone via iTunes, and choose not to send diagnostic data to Apple.

A 24 hour test using factory-only Apps with my MobileMe e-mail configured still shows the 2AM data leaving my iPhone, DOUGH!!!

I did appreciate the post that identified the Apple location data. I may try disabling that in a future experiment if someone does not already have the answer.

My next step is the following.

In one of my earlier post I noted that I have an ATT Microcell at home. This is connected to my Apple Airport Extreme router and then via Comcast to the web. I'll be I can log into my router and find out where the 3G data at 2AM is headed. If anyone has a tip about how to trace the activity it would be much appreciated.

Dan in VT