IOS 8 High Cellular Data Usage

Quick update - my daughter's iPhone 5S just consumed 90 mb of data since I dropped her off at school. She said she was tying up a story in Pages and sending a few iMessage texts and she is on wi-fi. Something is really screwy.

Thanks so much! I just wish I'd known this before my phone downloaded 2 Gigs worth of cellular data. I've never had a good upgrade on any iOS device from Apple. Now I have to pay a huge bill. Thanks Apple. If anyone in Australia wants to join me in requesting Apple refund the excess usage fees, I'd be happy to chat.

Im noticing something specific about at home broadband usage between Apple's devices. The new 802.11ac eats all the home broadband usage by 40 ping milliseconds. Using speed test . net I am normally at 22-16 ping range until one of the newer Apple iPhones is allowed in my network. It makes a big difference on different applications that I use at home that are processor limited, some missing juice on the modem and the system lags out.

The blatant abuse of the home broadband by Apple's iPhone 6 must be looked at, if it does this to home broadband imagine how quickly it can use cellular coverage data. If you notice closely your home connection will have reversed back to normal once the cellphone is not streaming video blazing fast anymore.

Im glad I got this out of my mind, I hope someone hears my query.

Im assuming all responsibility for this next post, a 2012 macbook pro sharing the home network with a iPhone 6 plus will lag on its basic operations like browsing and downloading by a decent percent, it should not be as stronger as the strongest laptop, but the engineers did that anyway. iPhone 6's antenna is using a ton of airspace until people like me start handing out red flags.

I'm so frustrated. I'm $90 into overage charges with AT&T and their only suggestion is to buy a larger data plan. I can't trade the phone in for an Android, I can't get the data bleeding to stop. It's just unconscionable that the solutions here limit the use of the phone. If I turn Cellular Data off, you can no longer send or receive MMS text messages, the iCloud was not even turned on. Something updates every 3 hours and I can't figure out what. I'm going to try a reset and see if that works. I'm not sure who has time for all of this, it's just crazy. I think a class action lawsuit is in order!

I had to turn off all cellular data access for apps on my daughter's 5S except for the standard apps that comes with iOS. The other two iPhone 6 and iPhone 5 consume barely any data at all. We are all on the same level of iOS. Her iPhone consumed 100 mb of data yesterday while on wireless the entire day.

The three hour thing is likely just the 3 hour summary reporting by the wireless companies - it's not a sudden data surge.

I just bought an unlocked iPhone 6 from Apple to take advantage of a $45 a month plan, not realizing I'd be a victim of this as well. I've had to resort to shutting off my cellular data completely when on wifi because the iPhone decides that LTE data is better than a 25 Mbps fibre connection. I also have turned off iCloud Drive from using cellular data in addition to turning off automatic App Store downloads (both on cellular data and over wifi).

I think it's worth noting that my three year old iPhone 4s never had this issue. So what it appears to me is the phone picking LTE over wifi (absolutely absurd). I also noticed that my data usage is very much higher with LTE enabled than over a 3G network, so it seems that disabling LTE somewhat helps.

Just to note, I'm running iOS 8.3 on my iPhone so clearly the issue wasn't fixed even after seven months... And instead of paying $45 I'll be paying almost $80... Not impressed!

(PS: I have about seven email accounts linked to my iPhone mail app and I have to admit this wouldn't be the only bug with the mail app... My notification previews are all off and yet all my emails still have previews... So don't be surprised if the mail app is the issue. I've put all my emails to fetch hourly and I'll see if it helps my usage at all.)

No, the right solution is:

1) Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services ->

a) Location-Based Alerts Off

b) Location-Based iAds Off

c) Motion Calibration & Distance Off

d) Frequent Locations Off

e) All options under Product Improvement Off

2) Settings -> iTunes & App Store -> Use Cellular Data Off

In addition, if you use iCloud Drive, turn off its ability to use cellular data. To do this, open Settings, go to iCloud, tap iCloud Drive, then scroll to the bottom and disable cellular data.

If you do not use iCloud Drive (i.e. you still use just iCloud), make sure Documents & Data in your iCloud settings is not using cellular data. This should also be in the Settings app, under the iCloud section.

Just as an update to my own situation, I've used 1 MB of cellular data since my previous post last night. That's it... just 1 MB. I've been disabling cellular data when connected to Wi-Fi and so even with my LTE on it seems to work. When not connected to Wi-Fi, I've left my LTE on and it still seems okay. I will continue to monitor my own usage.

I never said turn iCloud off. I said disable cellular data for iCloud. Why do you need iCloud using your LTE or 3G data just to keep things updated? Cellular data is unreliable compared to Wi-Fi and probably less secure than Wi-Fi as well. Besides, I'm happy with my once-a-day iCloud backup and would like to save my data and my battery life for other functions.

Hi all,

So I'm in the same boat. My daughter's 4s died. Bought a pre-owned 32 GB 5c on Gazelle.com and in a month she's racked up over 5 GB of data. Each of the other three of us on our family plan use approx. 0.5 GB (this is 2 5c's and a 6) and that's what she used to use on her old 4s. Her usage patterns have not changed with the new phone.

As soon as I got the first usage limit warning message, I turned off all the apps, location services, iCloud, etc. After livechatting with Apple just now, I reset the network and reset the statistics. I'm sitting here doing nothing on the phone, and we have Wifi on and connected...and in the past half hour the phone has used 219 KB of cellular data. Messages are coming in for her on iMessage, Instagram etc., but cellular data is turned off for those apps.

What is going on?

One thing I did find interesting in talking to Apple was that the original owner bought the phone less than a year ago, which makes me think this might be why s/he returned it. This means I still have a limited warranty. Here are my questions:

Should I take it to the genius bar and see if they'll replace it?

Return it to Gazelle (I have a few days left on my 30 day warranty)?

Can Verizon help or is this an Apple thing?

Any advice appreciated it.

Joanne

OK, I have the same issue. also ATT and iPhone 6. it all started 2 weeks ago when I got a message from ATT saying I was nearing my data limit, which I found very strange, but thought it must be one of the new photo storing apps that I'd installed. I was at the end of the cycle but bought the extra 500MB of data anyway.

then today I received the same warning, only 2 weeks into my billing cycle! and I've never ever reached my limit before. I've reset the usage statistics an hour ago, and system services has racked up a few KB since then, even though I'm on wifi. it says "push notifications" have used up all the data but I haven't received any notifications. I'm furious!

I have the same issue: ATT and two new iPhone6s in the family. I received the AT&T data limit warning this morning and found the phones had used about 2x their normal rate. We are trying some suggestions someone provided at the very beginning of this thread:

1) Settings>General>iCloud>Documents & Data... Scroll down and have the customer turn off Use¿Cellular Data

2) Settings>iTunes & App Store> Scroll down to AUTOMATIC DOWNLOADS and have the customer turn off MUSIC, APPS, UPDATES

3) Settings>General>Background App Refresh (turn off any apps that the customer doesn't want to automatically refresh with their information)

4) Settings>Privacy>Location Services (the customer will see all the apps that have the GPS enabled(Everything should be turned off except Setting Time Zone)

Here's what I wound up doing: Apple replaced the phone because it was still under warranty. I also bought a wireless extender to make the WiFi stronger in my daughter's room. I think one thing that was happening was the old phone was going to cell data too quickly at home and I think the better WiFi helped there. But since her usage was also unusually high when she wasn't at home, I know that wasn't the entire cause.

In any case, those two things fixed my problem. None of those other setting changes did a thing.

Joanne

This bug occurred on both my girlfriends iPhone 5s, and on my iPhone 6. The only way I found to truly fix it is to erase all content and settings from the phone, and instead of restoring a backup, set it up as a new iPhone. It's a huge pain, but considerably less so if you use iCloud Photo Library and iTunes Match, as all of that content will be waiting for you.

Judging from the fact this thread has well over a million views, and by the fact it occurred on both iPhones in our household, this is not an uncommon bug. My girlfriend paid hundreds of dollars in overage charges to AT&T before we finally figured it out. My phone had consumed nearly my entire months data within a day before I received a text message from AT&T warning me.

I can't imagine how costly (both monetarily and time wise) this issue has been to so many people, and I'm shocked and disappointed that Apple hasn't officially addressed it yet.

Jesse

SAme issue here! I checked all my cellular data usage for my iPhone 5 and everything is turned off. Went to DC and my data went over my limit within the first day. Just came back and I've been on WiFi ever since. Ironically I just received a text saying I've gone over my limit for a second time!