Wifi first?

If you are in an area where you can connect to Wi-Fi, the iPhone will default to Wi-Fi before using cellular data. All you need to do is connect to the Wi-Fi network.

Chris is correct but a little experience sharing here.

FWIW and anecdotal evidence only...... I have 4 iPhones on a Verizon plan that started with 8GB of shared data. I tracked our usage diligently for one year. I cut the data in half after one year since the most data that we had ever used in any one month was under 2GB. One year later we have yet to break 2GB in any one month.

My point is that there are so many WiFi hotspot/networks that you can connect to these days, that you don't have to rely on the cellular connection as much as people did when smartphones first came out. Of course, my remarks are based on the fact that you have access to WiFi wherever you are going. Many people don't want to trust public WiFi networks, but as long as you don't do banking, online purchasing or anything that could compromise important personal information, my feeling is that you are fine.

Just my two cents, and YMMV.

skwip wrote:

Maybe a bit of clarification: It seems that my phone is using cellular data when wifi is available. I have limited cellular data on almost all apps but still have 5gb+ usage for the month. Hence my question. Other than turning off cellular data totally, is there a setting somewhere that I don't seem to be able to find that will cause my iPhone to use wifi first in order of preference if wifi is available?

An iPhone is not connected to WiFi when it is asleep, even if there is a WiFi network available, unless the phone is connected to power. So when the phone is asleep and not plugged in any background process will use cellular data. Could this explain your experience?

skwip wrote:

I'll be careful to shut off cellular data usage in the future.

Or just plug the phone in at night. The phone will then be fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Hey Skwip, there is another way and I don't think it has been mentioned above. I hope you still check this site since it is solved because you could go into Settings > Cellular > and under Use Cellular Data For, deselect the App Store (not green) and every thing else you don't want. That is how I have mine set up and I never get App updates while on cellular whether plugged in or not. I only get them while on Wi-Fi which is what I believe you want also. Otherwise when you just set your phone down at home and it goes to sleep you may be downloading App updates even during the day.....

Meg St._Clair wrote:

skwip wrote:

I'll be careful to shut off cellular data usage in the future.

Or just plug the phone in at night. The phone will then be fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Which is exactly what I do every night and never understand why everybody doesn't do it.

Demo wrote:

Meg St._Clair wrote:

skwip wrote:

I'll be careful to shut off cellular data usage in the future.

Or just plug the phone in at night. The phone will then be fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Which is exactly what I do every night and never understand why everybody doesn't do it.

I don't really understand, either. But, there is an astonishingly large amount of bad information about batteries out there. People get the idea that they have to coddle their batteries.

Meg St._Clair wrote:

skwip wrote:

I'll be careful to shut off cellular data usage in the future.

Or just plug the phone in at night. The phone will then be fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

That has an added advantage. You can enable iCloud backup, and it will backup automatically every night. So the most data you can lose is one day's worth.