iPhone 5 iOS 7 how do I reduce wifi data usage?

Question

Level 1

5 points

iPhone 5 iOS 7 how do I reduce wifi data usage?

When traveling abroad I rent a pocket broadband wifi hotspot rather than renting a SIM because I want to keep my number for texting & calls. I find that I have to tune the heck out of my devices to avoid consuming a ton of data. The diagnostics aren't great to show what is devouring data. I can get my idle IPad mini with iOS 7 and my IPad with iOS 6 to avoid consuming background data. My iPhone 5 with iOS 7 however is devouring about 1MB per second. I've deleted iCloud, shut off push, shut off notifications, shut of location services, deleted every deletable app, shut of background data, reduced the # of days Outlook & gmail fetch (manually), deleted iMessage, and shut off iTunes background updates. I've done everything but wipe the phone. Still when I turn on wifi with nothing running in the background it chows through the data.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.4

Posted on Dec 19, 2013 8:59 PM

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Answer 1

May 18, 2017 6:03 AM in response to MplsApple

Any news here? If I connect my Iphone to a mobile 4G Hotspot( pocket wifi) the lots of megabytes are drained in a few minutes. The solution cannot be to buy more data deactivate/delete everything that uses wifi data. Its just too much: photo library, icloud backups automatic updates, spotify/

netflix downloads etc. Besides i want to use the features above as soon as I have a "real" internet connection.

So which iOS Version will finally give us the option to classify a wifi connection as "mobile" thus reducing data downloads to the same amount as if connected to a cellular 3G/4G service?

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Answer 2

sberman

Level 10

273,204 points

Dec 19, 2013 9:19 PM in response to MplsApple

It sounds like you've tried some very good remedies. A couple of additional thoughts:

Have you removed Game Center based apps? Game Center can run checks to make sure you are still a high scorer, etc.

Have you considered contacting your cellular carrier and simply finding an international roaming plan supplied by them? That would allow you to keep your number for texting and calls, but not have to deal with the pocket broadband. It sounds like you're just planning to use the texting and/or calls very rarely.

Hopefully you know you can check cellular data use at Settings > Cellular > Cellular Usage (near the bottom). You could dry run only using cellular data at home to see what is consuming your data. Or if you simply keep your home cellular service while abroad, you can monitor your progress while traveling.

Also see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4146

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Answer 3

K131

Level 1

4 points

Sep 15, 2014 3:13 AM in response to sberman

Are there any more recent news on this topic? Maybe changes coming with iOS 8?

There are many scenarios, where you may use a limited connection over wifi (tethering from Android to iOS, from iOS to iOS, mobile access points, limited data plans at some relative's place, ...). Windows 8 has a setting to declare a wifi connection as metered in the Wifi connection menu. Android 4.1+ supposedly does this automatically, if the wifi source is another Android 4.1+ device, and otherwise has a somewhat hidden setting for that purpose. Both make the device treat those Wifi connections as if they were mobile data (and often they are).

On iOS7 at least I know no method to do the same, hoping very much for iOS8. (Note that while the intelligent-hotspot feature hopefully includes this, it is no help in any use-case, that includes a non-apple device).

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