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Level 1

37 points

iOS 10 consuming mass quantities of data

So for the past few days I have been googling this to no avail.

Basically my cell data consumption has gone up at least 30% since I downloaded iOS 10 (I have been reviewing my ATT data). That puts me over my limit rather quickly, although I think this month is an exception (I blasted through my limit in half a month). My habits haven't changed at all. Clearly the beta version was showing issues from what I can gather.

I have iCloud Drive sync switch ("use cell data") turned off but I cannot understand how simple web suffering over lunch can lead to a 160 MB consumption (consistently). It was much less before.

I don't think it app auto update (clearly), I don't think it is location services (??), I do suspect that maybe my bookmarks might be an issue but I cannot believe that file is that big (but I do not know how to check it on the phone), my twitter use has actually gone down ... I really am only using Safari on these lunch breaks.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 20, 2016 9:51 AM

20 replies

chuckefus Author

Level 1

37 points

Nov 8, 2016 8:02 AM in response to ChrisJ4203

Yes, I understand about the ATT billing. I have been reviewing my data usage at their site since this started. I can go back to whatever date and see what I was using. The data shows a one-to-one correspondence to when I am typically away from my WiFi and surfing for news, etc. It shows a dramatic increase in data, as I have been saying, since iOS10/Sierra. I looked again this morning and it's actually worse than I have been thinking (meaning the old data is smaller than I had been thinking for some reason).

I have a desktop so Genius Bar is out of the question but I have a fair amount of understanding - I may not be exactly a power user but I am not far from it either (I have occasion to mess with Terminal, having done some Unix work in the past). What I don't know is what exactly they did in this latest update and whether I can opt out of it. So far, the only clue was iCloud Drive mentioned above which helped a little but not enough.

My guess is that since Apple's SW engineering seems to be getting worse, whomever came up with this bright idea of syncing across devices had infinite data available (as did the beta testers, except for the one I mentioned above) and so had no idea that they would cause these data overages. I can only hope that Apple is listening to the feedback and will rectify this in some way - some way to opt out, at least temporarily.

The paradoxical thing is that when I am physically near my WiFi, I am on my desktop. When I am using my phone, I am outside of it's range. So the phone is typically asleep when I am in WiFi range. I think that is the secondary problem that Apple did not take into account.

ANOTHER SUBJECT SINCE YOU SEEM TO BE AN IPHONE EXPERT: I posted a question some time ago here about Photos on my iPhone. I have a handful that I cannot delete- the "trash can" symbol is not highlighted so I cannot get rid of them from my phone. I deleted them from iCloud and from my Photos on my desktop. DO YOU KNOW OF SOMEWAY TO DELETE THEM FROM MY PHONE?

I am going to get the phone hooked up to iTunes sometime in the next week and see if I can delete all of my old photos from my phone (I don't want to get rid of them from iCloud or Photos though). Maybe Apple is syncing when it is not needed. They should only have done this syncing with new data, not existing, or asked the user to sync old data and warned them about data usage.

chuckefus Author

Level 1

37 points

Nov 8, 2016 8:08 AM in response to ChrisJ4203

Ooppss - sorry for that duplicate reply.

Anyway, I changed my habits so that I am not using my phone away from my WiFi for the last couple of days and, as expected, the data usage was minuscule for both days (Safari was the culprit). So there is some sanity in the universe after all.

Now I say Safari was the culprit only in the sense that is what I had been playing with away from my WiFi - I have no idea if the latest version of Safari is really that much of a hog or if the device syncing (iOS10/Sierra) is merely running amok.

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

230,371 points

Nov 8, 2016 9:50 AM in response to chuckefus

Not a problem about the double-post. That tends to happen here sometime.

As far as photos on the iPhone are concerned, then come from two different sources, either the Camera Roll, photos that you have taken or saved after receiving from mail, messages, etc., or photos that have been synced from the computer to the iPhone via iTunes. Photos from the Camera Roll can be deleted directly on the iPhone. Then you can also remove them from the Recently Deleted folder. Photos that are synced from the computer have to be removed in the same fashion. When you sync them to the phone, you select photos on the computer and then sync. Then a copy is placed on the phone. To remove them, you go back to iTunes and de-select the photos you wish to remove, and then perform a sync. This removes those photos from the phone. You cannot use the trash icon to remove photos that have been synced from the computer.

I don't remember if I mentioned that I'm not a Mac user, but the only syncing that I am aware that is done for me at least, between Safari and my computer is Bookmarks. That does not use much data, but if you seem to have witnessed a decrease in data usage after modifying your usage habits during your lunch, then you seem to have solved your issue.

chuckefus Author

Level 1

37 points

Nov 16, 2016 7:57 AM in response to ChrisJ4203

Well, after two calendar days of work (not continuously but many, many hours) last weekend, I deleted almost all the photos from my phone - about 3GB. I will spare the details - but my data usage, and perhaps my battery usage, has now stabilized to where it was before iOS 10/Sierra. So it does appear to be the case that Apple took it upon itself to resync everything that it had sync'd before. Stupid.

But I am on track now to be avoiding any overages for the month - that is not so much a big deal - it was only $20; it is more having control over my hardware; it is very stupid that the customer does not have more control over this.

As for those mystery photos (the three without a delete button associated with them), they are still on my phone. Those could not be sync'd to my iMac via iTunes - Photos has a message that "Three photos could not be uploaded" which are more than likely the three in question - the three that I cannot delete. A bug I am sure.

The other photos left on my phone seem to be somehow related to my desktop (I don't understand how, because they were taken with the phone) but they all have a delete symbol associated with them - why the process I used above did not get rid of them I don't know but I don't care anymore, now that data usage is under control. I think these already have been synced.

I did not check my battery this morning, but another bug was that Apple was doing data syncing overnight; and rather than using WiFi, it used my ATT data. Really stupid since the phone is always within WiFi range when I am asleep. And that sometimes would chew up a lot of battery overnight.

Really dumb design on Apple's part.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Nov 16, 2016 1:35 PM in response to chuckefus

Well, we were charged an extra $150 by ATT over the last three weeks because we kept going over our data plan and running through 1 GB additions like it was nothing.

Let me repeat, all that changed was the operating system updates to our phones, iPads and computers- not how we use our devices. After endless hours of researching, turning everything off and screenshoting data and etc, I give up.

I've turned data off for everything but the iPhone, messaging and find my iphone. I only turn data on for apps when I need them and then turn them back off. This has caused the iPhone to be utterly useless, completly annoying and time consuming and we still keep going over our 10GB data plan. The only thing we can do now is restore all iDevices to factory settings, cross our fingers, and make sure the computers are completly delinked from syncing anything -which pretty much defeats the purpose of staying all Apple.

Sad. Very sad.

iOS 10 consuming mass quantities of data