iTunes Match Gobbling Up Cellular Data (even though disabled)

Thanks for the post and update. Had the same problem on Friday. Started downloading songs over wifi at office then left and songs kept downloading over cellular even though option was off. Used about 500 MB just on Friday.

Same problem here. I will be contacting Apple and AT&T. I sucked down a few gigs of data - and went over my monthly limit - before I could even figure out the problem. Just effing terrible. Itunes Match is not a free service; I am actually paying Apple for the ability to blow through my data cap.

This is not an issue confined to iPhone 5. I have an iPhone 4S and after upgrading to ios6 last week and needing to redownload music from the cloud, iTunes Match downloaded music over a cellular network and used up all my data allowance for the month (on the first day).

After calling tech help I was told this was not a problem with iTunes Match but a "feature". You need to switch off iTunes Match when you are not using it. This is a significant issue with usability of the service as it takes away playlists along with being very slow and unresponsive when switching it back on. Any playlists created would then be erased when switching it back on.

The "use cellular data" switches in settings are pointless and IOS will download whatever it wants. The only workaround for this is to switch of cellular data completely.

Given that there is very little information on how itunes Match works (or does not work), I would not recommend iTunes Match since these changes are a significant backward step on how the service was offered previously.

I just read a cnet article that explains that the setting in music does not work if you have push notifications turned on in the store. You must make sure you turn off automatic push notifications in the STORE by going to Settings>store> and turn off all automatic downloads. I have also turned off "Use cellular data" here as well since I don't need to download purchases (nor do I want to download purchases over the cell network). I can't be sure this will work but seems like a reasonable explanation.

I visited the Genius Bar about this problem today. I was able to show him how iTunes Match ignores the setting of Use Cellular Data = Off. He even reproduced it himself and said that it sure looks like a bug. He's submitting to Apple. I went ahead and submitted via feedback as well. Fortunately, Verizon said there is no issue correcting the data usage issue that resulted and I won't be responsible.

I have the same problem here. Started downloading 600 songs or so via wifi at work last night. When I left work it hadn't finished, so I disabled itunes match, and last night synced my phone the old way and added songs via itunes on the laptop. When I woke up this morning, there were a number of alerts saying particular songs couldn't download. I checked my data usage and it continues to climb (3.4GB in total, 500MB in half an hour). despite: Itunes Match disabled, cellular data off in icloud, itunes and music settings. Also - most of the songs I wanted to download should now be on my phone as I have put them there via a traditional sync.

Have spoken to carrier and turned off celular data completely on the phone to stop it until I await a fix....

AAAAGGGHHH

So I think you can temporarily kill the download if you quit the iTunes Store app on your phone. To do that, double-tap the home button, tap and hold the purple iTunes app (not the orange Music app) until things wobble, then tap the red Close button.

It's temporary though because if you attempt to download another song, that'll fire up the iTunes app and the entire download queue will resume.

This happened to me today.

I started a download of a playlist of 408 songs this morning while I was getting ready for work. Before I left the house I flipped off the "use cellular data" option under Music and left for work.

I noticed my phone was quite warm in my pocket (another issue) and then I got a notice from Verizon that I was at 75% of my 2GB of data usage. I was like what? I wasn't even close to 1GB a few days ago!

Then I check the playlist and sure enough it was downloading songs. I checked the switch in Music settings and confirmed it was off. So, then I went and stopped each individual song.

This is BS.

This just screwed me today. My data allowance re-ups on the 21st. I started syncing music before I left the house this morning, and I guess it didn't finish before I left. I thought I was safe with cellular data off. It ran my battery down 30% in 30 minutes, and Verizon rate limited me off the network. I couldn't get service again for 10 minutes.

Same issue here: iTunes Match just downloaded 1 Gigabyte over my mobile network. The wording of the option "Use Cellular data" clearly states "Use cellular network for automatic downloads AND iTunes Match". So if you disable it, it should not use any data for iTunes Match. This must be a bug, not a feature. And it's a bug that will cost me a lot of money because downloading outside my data plan is expensive!

I too queued up a handful of albums to download this morning, took a shower, walked the dog... and by the time I got to work, a text from VZW tells me I've used 50% of my (2GB) data for the month (2 days into billing cycle). This is on a 4S with iOS6, with FiOS and Airport Express at home, so it should have finished the 750mb or so in the alloted 45 minutes, but the screen went dark, so iPhone took a nap instead of doing her job.

This is bonkers for several reasons:

1. If you queue several iCloud downloads, from within the Music app, there is no visible queue for the pending downloads. You have to go back into the artist/album to see the progress on each song OR enter the iTunes app to check the pending downloads. WHAT? my queue is in ANOTHER app?*

2. Queued downloads continue when the app is "killed" from the task switcher. I guess this is a feature, but there is NO indication of a data connection in use.

3. If the iPhone screen goes dark to sleep, it turns off wifi to save battery and any queued downloads stop. They will resume, over any available data connection, regardless of user selected settings. This is true for partially downloaded songs and queued songs. If I wanted to use cellular to download, I would enable that setting.

4. Podcasts, while a different app from music, uses the same data storage and download queueing. So if you have pending downloads that you can't see the progress of, you may wonder why podcasts aren't updating.

5. In music.app, if you have "show all music" set to on, there is no indication if an artist/album is available locally or in iCloud. You have to browse into the tree to see the track names greyed out. Or else you can toggle "show all music" in settings. Why can't there be a toggle within music.app, or an iCloud/local tab? While I'm ranting about Music app, PLEASE can we have a sort by Artist/Album/YEAR option like in iTunes on mac?

Just bought Itunes match and wish I had read this before buying.

I just chewed through my wife's 500MB and also ran up a 25€ bill before we noticed I had of course switched off cellular data via match.

I'm now writing to itunes for a refund due to this bug on the phone. Or failing that somewhere on the site that says this will happen.

I also have my suspicions that this is also happening with the podcast app that if you like up 5-10 podcasts to download under wifi and then leave the house before they complete that they continue to download on 3G/LTE!

I've used 896 of my 1 G connection and NEVER download apps while out of range.

It's got so I switch my 3G off most of the time which is crazy and defeats the purpose of the phone.

Please let us know if a refund was possible. My phone bill will be massive because of this.

Also, I've read somewhere IOS 6.01 will fix this bug. A new option will be added in Settings.

Verizon has been quite helpful for me. After I reported the problem and told them I was taking my phone to the Genius Bar, they said they would call me back to find out the result and figure out what to do next. They called back right on schedule. Once I explained that the Genius acknowledged it as a bug, the Verizon rep said he would put a watch on my account and call back after the billing cycle ended to apply any necessary credits. Kudos to Verizon. They made this easy.