Apps using data

w@ll3gurl

hi - does anyone know of any way that you can tell an app is going to use data when you use it?
i've downloaded a few, that seemingly don't need to be online or whatever, but then i notice that i get some internet usage on my phone account. I am doing a bit of a test run today to confirm its happening, but i'm just wondering is there any way of knowing before you buy an app, that its going to need to use data.

I saw one last night where it says, 'doesnt need to be online except if you...bla bla' so at least some of them are telling you. But the others i actually downloaded had no such info.
Thanks

mad muffin

I too am getting phantom data usage. Have waisted over €20 on it and I dont know what is using it.:mad:

I'm on PAYG and its getting bloody expensive.

w@ll3gurl

Yeah I'm the same, PAYG. I must read your other thread Mad Muffin, to get a handle on what problems you've been having.

The thing with me is, today at least, i have actually been using apps - this coincides with the data use that i see when i log into my O2 account online - so it is me generating the data use.

However, I just didn't realise that all these apps need data. Fair enough, i can see why something like Sky News or whatever, needs data - but other apps appear to have all their functions built in when you use them, but obviously they don't.....how are we supposed to tell?

I guess we are not - so our friends in Apple can generate lots of revenue for their friends in the phone companies! :rolleyes:

booyah1024

w@ll3gurl wrote: »

I guess we are not - so our friends in Apple can generate lots of revenue for their friends in the phone companies! :rolleyes:

so it's apple's fault if application developers add networking functionality into their apps?

w@ll3gurl

booyah1024 wrote: »

so it's apple's fault if application developers add networking functionality into their apps?

Well i really don't care who is responsible for it, but it's a bit of a pain in the arse if you are using something you think you are not paying for / using your data allowance, and then you find out you were charged a lot more.

I'm just saying it is not clear at all when you buy some of these apps, how much internet functionality there is. And i think that is poor.

anyway, caveat emptor and all that....

Surely, if they can put a little tag on app store telling you the size of the thing, they could get some info about if/how it uses data. It's not much to ask and would help people manage their data/accounts a lot better. And save people from the hassle Mad Muffin is getting with phantom data usage.

Dades

Anything that requires changing information, or access to too much information that is practical to download to your phone is likely to use data.

The weather, stocks, currency convertor, shazam, iePhoneBook etc.
It should be obvious which apps will use data.

Although, as per mad muffin's case - it might not be obvious when they do.

mad muffin

Dades wrote: »

Anything that requires changing information, or access to too much information that is practical to download to your phone is likely to use data.

The weather, stocks, currency convertor, shazam, iePhoneBook etc.
It should be obvious which apps will use data.

Although, as per mad muffin's case - it might not be obvious when they do.

This is what really gets me though.

What ever is using this refuses to use wifi as I am on PAYG I want it to stop

The thing is when I disable 3G and Edge through SBSettings I cant use data but what ever is using it can over ride this and use it.

So I have no choice but to disable data usage by altering my APN to a wrong one rendering it unusable.

So I do this and the second I do my phone goes into meltdown by constantly hunting for a connection. Literally my phone becomes so hot I can hardly touch it and the battery drains by 1% per second and refuses to charge properly.

My phone is going into self distrusct mode and comes back to normal as soon as I restore the APN to normal.

ATM I am just living with it but am going on holidays shortly and obviously will have data roaming turned off. Will my phone chuck a spaz the second I turn it on overseas when it cant connect to a data sources and explode in my hand from overheating?

Has anyone ever experienced such a thing? The phone is locked to its original network and no turbo sim is being used.

It is jailbroken but I am not using anything out of the ordinary. No wifi or 3G hacks, no tethering.

Oh I must add the phantom data usage started the minute I activated the phone so I doubt it has anything to do with it being jailbroken. It did it on 2.2.1 and now on 3.0. It did it on my original phone and its doing it on my replacement one.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Tom Dunne

mad muffin wrote: »

This is what really gets me though.

What ever is using this refuses to use wifi as I am on PAYG I want it to stop

The thing is when I disable 3G and Edge through SBSettings I cant use data but what ever is using it can over ride this and use it.

I find that very hard to believe, tbh.

Generally speaking, applications don't know the difference between a 3G connection and a WiFi connection. To say that an application over-rides you switching off 3G is most suspect. Think about it - how can the likes of the weather application know anything about 3G? It makes a call to the iPhone operating system to get to a network address (e.g. www.weather.com or whatever). It doesn't care how it is done - i.e. WiFi, or 3G, so if it can't get a connection, it just stops and says so.

I don't have data enabled on my iPhone any more, so when I fire up any net aware apps, they just do that - tell me there is no net connection and that's the end of it. Yes, Skype is a special case, but other than that, my point stands.

mad muffin wrote: »

My phone is going into self distrust mode and comes back to normal as soon as I restore the APN to normal.

Wow, a self-doubting iPhone. What will they think of next?

mad muffin wrote: »

ATM I am just living with it but am going on holidays shortly and obviously will have data roaming turned off. Will my phone chuck a spaz the second I turn it on overseas when it cant connect to a data sources

No. I've used my iPhone abroad, with data roaming turned off and hit applications, such as the weather app, by accident and nothing earth shattering has happened. It simply told me it cannot get a network connection and nothing more.

mad muffin wrote: »

Oh I must add the phantom data usage started the minute I activated the phone so I doubt it has anything to do with it being jailbroken. It did it on 2.2.1 and now on 3.0. It did it on my original phone and its doing it on my replacement one.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Quite simply, there has to be an application connecting. The iPhone itself doesn't connect, the applications do.

Start by removing all applications and adding them in one by one. That's the only way to get to the bottom of it.

mad muffin

Tom Dunne wrote: »

I find that very hard to believe, tbh.

Generally speaking, applications don't know the difference between a 3G connection and a WiFi connection. To say that an application over-rides you switching off 3G is most suspect. Think about it - how can the likes of the weather application know anything about 3G? It makes a call to the iPhone operating system to get to a network address (e.g. www.weather.com or whatever). It doesn't care how it is done - i.e. WiFi, or 3G, so if it can't get a connection, it just stops and says so.

Well what ever it is it doesn't use wifi. I know because I have wifi on all the time and I have checked times on my bill and it should have used wifi but it didn't. Also why when I disable internet usage it hunts for a connection even though wifi is on?

Tom Dunne wrote: »

I find that very hard to believe, tbh.



I don't have data enabled on my iPhone any more, so when I fire up any net aware apps, they just do that - tell me there is no net connection and that's the end of it. Yes, Skype is a special case, but other than that, my point stands.

Well that was the same for me when I disabled 3G/Edge I was unable to use anything that required a net connection (I had wifi off to experiment) yet still got charged for data usage (of the phantom variety)

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Wow, a self-doubting iPhone. What will they think of next?

Fixed.:pac:

Tom Dunne wrote: »

No. I've used my iPhone abroad, with data roaming turned off and hit applications, such as the weather app, by accident and nothing earth shattering has happened. It simply told me it cannot get a network connection and nothing more.

I refer to my statement that as soon as what ever it is cant establish a working 3G/Edge connection it never stops looking for one, hence the very hot phone/peculiar charging occurrence.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Quite simply, there has to be an application connecting. The iPhone itself doesn't connect, the applications do.

Nothing to do with the phone trying to establish something with O2?

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Start by removing all applications and adding them in one by one. That's the only way to get to the bottom of it

I was contemplating this

padraig_f

Yeah I had a problem like this, I fixed it by turning off all push notifications (Settings/Notifications).

I had Edge/3G turned off in SBsettings too but AFAIK SBsettings doesn't really turn off the Edge/3G connection, it just makes it look like the connection is unavailable to apps. Push notifications, because they're not initiated by the app, will bypass it.

When you put your iphone into standby, it turns off WiFi and push notifications use the Edge/3G data connection.

mad muffin

padraig_f wrote: »

Yeah I had a problem like this, I fixed it by turning off all push notifications (Settings/Notifications).

I had Edge/3G turned off in SBsettings too but AFAIK SBsettings doesn't really turn off the Edge/3G connection, it just makes it look like the connection is unavailable to apps. Push notifications, because they're not initiated by the app, will bypass it.

When you put your iphone into standby, it turns off WiFi and push notifications use the Edge/3G data connection.

But this was happening to me before 3.0 on 2.2.1 which didn't have push.

I have 2 Apps that use Push ATM but why would the phone use push if they aren't pushing anything? Plus I only got theme recently.

Further more I know it isn't an App, I just had a look at the 1st page of my bill and it started on th 1st day I got the phone before I even installed any Apps or even JB'd the phone.:(

w@ll3gurl

padraig_f wrote: »

Yeah I had a problem like this, I fixed it by turning off all push notifications (Settings/Notifications).

I had Edge/3G turned off in SBsettings too but AFAIK SBsettings doesn't really turn off the Edge/3G connection, it just makes it look like the connection is unavailable to apps. Push notifications, because they're not initiated by the app, will bypass it.

.

Where do you turn off Edge?

Tom Dunne, you said "I don't have data enabled on my iPhone any more, so when I fire up any net aware apps, they just do that - tell me there is no net connection and that's the end of it. Yes, Skype is a special case, but other than that, my point stands. "

how do you mean you don't have data enabled? I have location services, 3g, data roaming off mostly - is there anything i am missing?

sorry for all the stupid questions!

Dades, you have it in a nutshell, apps will use data, its just the knowing when. Ah in fairness i'll get the hang of it.

mad muffin

w@ll3gurl wrote: »

Where do you turn off Edge?

Is your phone jailbroken? You can install SBSettings and there is an option to turn Edge and 3G off.

It didn't work for me in so far as yeah I couldn't download anything or upload but something could as I still got charged for data.

Tom Dunne

mad muffin wrote: »

Further more I know it isn't an App, I just had a look at the 1st page of my bill and it started on th 1st day I got the phone before I even installed any Apps or even JB'd the phone.:(

Have you asked O2 what is being connected to? If they are charging you for data, they will be able to tell you what site the data is from. You can then narrow it down to an application. It has to be an application.

w@ll3gurl wrote: »

how do you mean you don't have data enabled? I have location services, 3g, data roaming off mostly - is there anything i am missing?

I do not have data enabled on my mobile phone account (anymore).

mad muffin

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Have you asked O2 what is being connected to? If they are charging you for data, they will be able to tell you what site the data is from. You can then narrow it down to an application. It has to be an application.

Oh so if I call them and give them time and date they will be able to tell me what the data usage was for?

w@ll3gurl

mad muffin wrote: »

Is your phone jailbroken? You can install SBSettings and there is an option to turn Edge and 3G off.
.

Ah ha! No mine isn't jailbroken. and data can be disabled on accounts. ok i am learning fast here

Thanks madmuffin & tom Dunne.

Tom Dunne

mad muffin wrote: »

Oh so if I call them and give them time and date they will be able to tell me what the data usage was for?

Yes, they will be able to.

I think this will solve your problem once and for all.

mad muffin

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Yes, they will be able to.

I think this will solve your problem once and for all.

Thanks I must call them so. I have been meaning to for a while its just that I hate to need to talk to them, half the time they are pretty useless.

When I ported my number over the 1st person I spoke to didn't do it properly so had to call again. When I called to have my phone replaced the person on the line asked me if I had an Apple Store near by.:eek:

mad muffin

betafrog wrote: »

Errmmm... I'm pretty sure that only turns off the 3G, I don't think you can turn off Edge...

Well I wouldn't have said it if I didn't try it out for myself.