IOS 8 High Cellular Data Usage

8.0.2. did not resolve this.

Charging seems to start it for me. So it could be sync related? But syncing is set to use wifi only...

Total cellular usage still way more than adding up individual item usage.

Can only stop it by switching off cellular use. What's the point having a smartphone then?

I am still having this issue on iOS 8.0.2. I contacted Verizon yesterday to get my data overage fee waived and they were being extremely difficult about it.

I had to keep explaining to them that from 9/16 (the day I updates to iOS 8) through 9/28 (the day I contacted Verizon), which is only twelve days, my phone consumed 1.4GB of data. In one month, I average around 1.6GB of data usage. After one hour of help, the customer service representative told me that I would have to just keep cellular data shut off, which is incredibly frustrating. I bought an iPhone to use it, not have my settings shut off. Later the rep told me that deleting apps from my phone would free up some GB of Verizon data; nice try, I'm not dumb. The rep also told me that Verizon has no idea what I'm using my data for, and they have no way of proving that my phone is consuming my data and not a certain app, even though I tried to explain the concept of the Usage screen in settings.

Needless to say, the chat didn't go anywhere. I apologize for the rant.

Mine still appears to be a problem. I tried to reset all content and settings, have turned off countless other items as well, but it's just used up 7mb within 5 mins. I'm back on wifi now, but on Monday 20% was used up within an hour and a half on wifi! Can't get an appointment at Genius Bar until Monday next week. Just waiting for a online chat with them now.

Engineers are working on a fix, "iphones are pulling data usage that isn't supposed to be happening". You best report it through chat as they need to raise a ticket to speed up the fix. They call you back so doesn't cost anything, obviously apart from loss of data allowance!!!

I have the same issue here in Germany with my iPhone 6.

Yesterday evening made the reset and configured the phone as new, THAT DIDNT HELP!

Whta I can figure out is, when I start iBooks, it loads dozens of MB over cellular data, without showing up in the system settings.

But the data amount in "iTunes Accounts" blows up.

When I kill iBooks, it stops. Unfortunately I like to read...

The tip worked a charm for me.

Upgraded my wife's iphone to an iphone6 on 9/26. Made the mistake of restoring from backup in ITunes to get her apps back. After that, in the afternoon of 9/26 it used 140Mb of cellular data, and on 9/27 it used 255Mb instead of her usual 22Mb or so per day. Saw this tip, used "Erase All Content and Settings", set the phone up again using the "set up as a new phone" option, hooked it up to ITunes, selected the apps to restore, and clicked apply to move them to the phone. Data usage for 9/28 through 10/4 is back to 22Mb per day!

Thanks for the tip, so far so good.

Apple was less than helpful. First, they denied that they had received any such complaints. After I pointed them to this thread, the answer changed to "the problem could be one of many things".

Apple's technician tried saying that it's because of third party apps are not playing well with iOS 8.

I've restored my phone from a backup but I have to wait and see if the huge chunk of data usage occurs again tomorrow. The backup was dated AFTER the problem started (1 October 2014), so I'm not sure if it will solve things?

As expected, there was no solution for the problem of the data usage already incurred. I asked Apple for an email to send to my service provider verifying the problem so I could ask for a waiver, but they refused.

Apple asked me to speak to my service provider to waive the charges, saying there is nothing they can do about it.

My service provider refuses to waive the charges, saying I should look to Apple for this.

I am completely lost as to what I should do now. In the meantime, my usage continues shooting up by 300 to 400++ MB a day.

I followed these instructions from AT&T and now my Data is under control

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)

As posted above, I had the same problems and followed these recommendations from AT&T, so far so good, my data now seems under control....

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)

Good Luck

You phone will look for apps that can be updated in the background. Like if you have a newspaper app, it looks for new news stories, or emails for an email app and so on. Turn off cellphone use for that, and it will just use wireless.

I have been having the same problem, ever since updating my iPhone 5S (AT&T) to iOS 8. My plan has 2GB of data and I NEVER go over! I received a text message from AT&T billing that I exceeded my data usage and they were adding an additional 1GB of data for $10, then less than 24 hours later I received another text saying that I used up that 1GB and they were adding another 1GB and charging another $10. Since then, I have received this message for a total of 6GB! I went to my settings, data roaming is off, I turned cellular data off for all my apps and am still draining data. It's unreal. I called AT&T and they confirmed that it is connected to the iOS 8 update and credited me for the overage charges. Still waiting for a solution to the problem. Why hasn't Apple issued a software update to fix this problem?

On the phone with Apple right now and the technician just told me that they haven't had any customers call in to report this issue! Outrageous! Does Apple even read their own support community discussion boards?????

My phone appears to be fixed now, although I did have a nightmare with it and numerous lengthy phone call with Apple. I was told to go into General, Reset all settings, this only got to 5% and locked my phone, hard reset again got to about 10% and locked up. Had to restore it from my itunes backup on my pc. After my data usage was restored with my carrier (4 days later) I had to turn off background app refresh (in general) and turn off data usage for every single app, reset statistics and then monitor it and gradually turn the apps back on, I took loads of screen shots as there's so many to compare usage.

Seems to be under control now, I've used 113mb in a week, which I think is about average for me. Still not turned all the apps back on, but facebook app does seem to use up quite a bit.

Hi there! We are going through the same thing right now. My wife's iPhone 6 (IOS 8.02) is using data at an unsustainable rate - even while being connected to wifi. She turned off everything cellular on her phone to the point that it's inconvenient, she connects to wifi at work and at home, and still we are seeing a very strange pattern in data usage. According to data usage analysis on the Verizon wireless website, at 3:50 and 9:50 - both AM and PM - her phone is using between 30MB and 75MB or more of plan data. At 3:50 AM she is sleeping at home with her phone connected to wifi. That appears to be a synchronizing behavior - every six hours. Does iCloud synchronize in six hour intervals? If so, can that interval be changed? Why would it choose to use cellular to synchronize when she is connected to wifi? Does wifi hibernate when the phone is not in use for a certain period of time, thereby resorting to cellular data usage?

Also, regarding resetting the phone, would restoring the phone using a backup created while this issue is affecting her result in the same problem? Her backups - either to the cloud or using iTunes - are from this phone at a time she is experiencing this data issue.

Is Apple acknowledging any of this? One of the people posting here mentioned that AT&T admitted there have been issues with data usage related to IOS 8. I have been Googling it, but I haven't found anything public from them, Verizon or Apple (or other carriers, I should add). I know we aren't alone. Is there any chance we are going to get a fix? This seems unreasonable, especially at a time when the carriers (at least Verizon) is concerned about overuse of their bandwidth.

Thanks everyone! I appreciate anything you can suggest.