Sleeping iPhones Send Phantom Data 248
Stoobalou writes with a story that got started earlier this month when iPhone users in the US and the UK noticed that their phones seemed to be sending large data bursts via 3G overnight. (Providers are ending unlimited contracts, so iPhone users are paying more attention to how much data they are using.) The discussions began on MacOSRumors and an Apple discussion forum. Thinq.co.uk makes this guess as to what is going on, but doesn't offer much in the way of substantiation: "The simple fact of the matter is — as far as we can tell — that the iPhone's push notifications and other small transfers of data are totted up throughout the day and the total for all of those notifications is added up after dark and sent to your airtime provider while your phone is sleeping. If these tiny amounts of data were individually listed your bill would probably be the size of a telephone directory. The reason it is using the 3G network rather than Wi-Fi is that all iPhones up to and including the 3Gs turn off Wi-Fi push functionality while the phone is in sleep mode, in order to preserve battery life. The iPhone 4, incidentally, has better power management so will not need to do this."
Re:Tinfoil hat mode (Score:5, Informative)
If you are extremely worried about this, just put your device into "airplane mode" before putting it to sleep. It won't try to talk to anything at all.
If you're only slightly worried about it, well, OS4 has an option to disable using the cellular connection for data at all, forcing all data over wifi but still leaving the ability to receive SMS and phone calls on. (OS4 brings more tools for managing your bandwidth use than previous releases ever had.)
Terrible headline (Score:3, Informative)
The headline is contradicted in the summary. It should read: Sleeping iPhones Appear To Send Phantom Data.
Turns out they don’t, it’s just a total of use from the entire day that accumulated a lot of tiny data transfers made by the iPhone’s system which are too numerous and trivial to itemize on the bill.
this feature is already on iPad and Touch (Score:4, Informative)
The iPad (even non-3G) and the Touch also have the ability to stay logged into a WiFi network in very low power mode and so can get push data over WiFi. And I can't imagine these were forced by AT&T.
Besides, what if you are in an AT&T dead zone (of course we all know these are mythical ;) and you get a FaceTime(TM) call or try to Find My iPhone? Wouldn't you like it to get through on WiFi even though you can't get a push over 3G to your phone?
Re:Tinfoil hat mode (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Who cares about 3G usage? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Does it explain the sucky battery life? (Score:5, Informative)
We have about 150 iPhones for corporate use and we have had to return 8 so far because of bad battery life. We have had more reports of deteriorating battery life from approx. 25 more users that doing a full restore to the phone and NOT applying the backup, just rebuilding the phone manually, has resolved their battery life back to original capacity.
The key is not to restore the backup created immediately before the restore in iTunes. Even though all of the push and antenna settings are set correctly, there is still something in the OS that makes the battery drain.
The worst one I've seen so far would drain 8% every 5 minutes; you could literally watch the battery percentage count down like a timer. Doing a restore of the OS fixed it.
Re:Terrible headline (Score:5, Informative)
Turns out they don’t, it’s just a total of use from the entire day that accumulated a lot of tiny data transfers made by the iPhone’s system which are too numerous and trivial to itemize on the bill.
Do we know this? TFA presents that as a speculative explanation, but offers no evidence. All these Apple types are relying on what their telephone bill says -- which seems kinda naive, given that cellphone carriers are not exactly known for their truthfulness.
What we really need is an RF geek to set up some equipment to monitor an iPhone's overnight radio activity, and give us some hard data to consider.
Re:let me get this straight (Score:3, Informative)
The iPhones are using 3G bandwidth overnight to report on how much 3G bandwidth they used during the day?
Undoubtedly no; it’d be tallied up on the provider’s end and then added to your bill by a batch queue running daily. Other than that relatively minor detail, I think their theory is pretty sound.
Re:Here I go blowing some more points (Score:1, Informative)
Voices of sanity are being drowned here on Slashdot
No, they're not. Not any more or less that with any other article. That post of yours was absolute trolling. You weren't "speaking up against Apple" for any reason than the usual jihad.
Plenty of posts critical of Apple are modded up in every single discussion. Some of them are right, some of them are wrong, and some of them should be modded troll.
Sad to see Slashdot descend into a Apple fanboy site.
Oh horseshit. What's worse than the fanboys (who have always been around) are the haters (who are always vocal about being marginalized by fanboys--almost universally injected into the discussion by the haters).
Happened to me yesterday when I questioned Apple's practices.
You didn't question their practices. You made a mix of false statements and one-sided condemnations.
Article summary is stupid, not apple (Score:3, Informative)
The way I'm reading this makes it seem like they buried the lead. The iPhones are using 3G bandwidth overnight to report on how much 3G bandwidth they used during the day? That's stupid! That's stupid like 8 different ways.
If they were it would be.
Instead it's a matter of when data usage is reported on your bill - nothing more.
Re:Does it explain the sucky battery life? (Score:3, Informative)
Theoretically you are probably right but not in practice - I have personal experience (warning N-size one story coming up): My folks live up in a remote area where there is no cell service. If you take a cell phone up there and leave it on, the battery will get drained very rapidly (~ 8 hours). I think it's probably b/c it's hearing very distance signals and trying to connect and failing at max transmit power again and again. If you turn the radio off of course the power drain becomes very slow. Once you drive into town where there is signal, the battery drain becomes more typical.
Re:Does it explain the sucky battery life? (Score:3, Informative)
I know my phone drains much faster when I'm in a poor reception area than when I've got a good signal.
Re:Does it explain the sucky battery life? (Score:4, Informative)
This is true. And it's actually a battery saving technique. The phone will attempt to transmit and make a connection with the weakest possible transmission power possible. If that fails, then it kicks up the power and tries again.
In the well covered areas, it doesn't take a lot of power to hit a cell phone tower. So the amount of power needed to stay in contact is minimal. In a weak signal area, it takes more power to maintain that contact, which is why the battery drains faster. Also, in weak signal areas, the signal tends to be lost completely often. When that happens, the phone will wake up and start searching for a new tower using the previously described ramp-up method. It will keep attempting that every minute or so until it finds a tower.
Re:Does it explain the sucky battery life? (Score:2, Informative)
This is true. And it's actually a battery saving technique. The phone will attempt to transmit and make a connection with the weakest possible transmission power possible. If that fails, then it kicks up the power and tries again.
You have it backwards. Phones don't transmit when they are looking for a tower, they LISTEN. The tower has MUCH more transmit power than the phone does, so when you are out of range, it is likely you can hear the tower, but it can't hear you.
And when the phone does try to make initial contact with the tower, it does so at the highest possible power level. The tower then tells it to reduce the transmit power, if it is too high.
The tower is smart about receiving initial contacts too. It reserves some time slots for such attempts, in effect saying "if you're trying to get in touch with me, do so NOW". It has to do this because of the propagation delay - it doesn't know how far away you are, and doesn't want you to transmit all over a time-slot that is reserved for someone else.
here we go again.. sensationalist title (Score:2, Informative)
brings the trolls out
it's not just iphones. it's ALL PHONES FROM ATT.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/another-iphone-mystery-explained/ [nytimes.com]
Fortunately, this one has a happy ending. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel tells me:
“What your readers are seeing is a routine update of the daily data activity on their devices—whether the iPhone or other handsets—to ensure billing accuracy. Customers are not charged for any data usage as part of this routine update