If you have data roaming turned off for an app why do you still get notifications

Because you probably aren't roaming.

You don't have a cell provider locally? Data roaming means you have left the service area for your provider and you are using another affiliated carrier in an area that your provider doesn't cover.

No offense, roaming doesn't mean driving around town. Just want to be sure you understand that. Roaming means you're outside your cellular provider coverage network and you're using their partner network.

ShagCA wrote:

No offense, roaming doesn't mean driving around town. Just want to be sure you understand that. Roaming means you're outside your cellular provider coverage network and you're using their partner network.

To expand on that correct answer, it further means a network that your provider does not have a reciprocal coverage arrangement with. So "roaming" really means you can be charged for the usage by the non-network carrier.

No, that is not what Data Roaming is referring to in this case. See the reply by Lawrence above.

No, that is not what it is for. Go further down in the cellular usage page under Settings > Cellular and turn of cell data use for this apps you do not want to have access.

stevewood wrote:

Ah thanks, just read through that my mistake I thought turning data roaming off would also stop downloads when I use my carrier to save my data

If that is your goal turn off "Cellular data" rather than data roaming. Or, as deggie pointed out, you can turn off individual apps. Note that if Cellular Data is off you will not receive MMS messages or Visual Voicemail.

stevewood wrote:

Hi, I did turn off mobile data for the app but got a notification for it but when I opened it it didn't download so just wondered if you should still get a notification that was all

Ah, the mysteries of cellular service. Notifications do not use cellular data; they use the cellular network's voice network control side channel, the same channel that SMS (text) messages use.

Digression:

Back at the beginning of modern cellular systems the network needed a way for network nodes to communicate with each other and to set up calls. This was communication was done with a small segment of the voice channel. How does the network know where your phone is when someone calls you? The phone periodically sends a "here I am" message over this channel to the network switch, where it gets propagated to a central location. So when someone calls you the system looks up where you last were and routes the call to the tower that you were connected to. If you've moved it starts trying nearby towers, then further ones until it finds where you actually are and can connect the call.

This side channel network is only lightly used; it's idle most of the time. Some engineer got the brilliant idea that they could sell the unused bandwidth, and SMS was born. It was an ideal situation; the network had to be there anyway, so the cost of using it for SMS was essentially zero. But they could charge end users for text messaging, because it was of value to the user.