I Phone Data Usage Problem

[Jensmith]

Found this snippet too in the Apple programming guide you linked to: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... sFlow.html

"The system keeps suspended apps in memory for as long as possible, removing them only when the amount of free memory gets low. Remaining in memory means that subsequent launches of your app are much faster. At the same time, being suspended means your app does not drain the device’s battery as fast."

Doesn't drain the battery as fast.... right, so it does drain it then and depending on the app will depend on how much it is drained.

"Most apps are moved to the suspended state shortly after entering the background. Only apps that provide important services to the user are allowed to continue running for any amount of time."

So if the OP is using one of these apps then it is likely to be causing problems if it's still running background tasks.

 

[petermillard]

I guess we can agree to respectfully disagree.

Of course - and I think we're agreeing more than we're disagreeing tbh.

Even if Apple says so, it doesn't mean developers have written their apps correctly...

That's very true. As I said earlier in the thread, an early iOS version of Skype was a particularly battery-hostile, and as others have said, location-based apps can be constantly polling for location data - but FWIW I'd never call an app that's not executing any code 'running'

Anyway, enough; hope the OP gets this sorted - and posts the answer back here as it'd be interesting to hear what the problem was. One thing that caught me out once was inadvertently streaming a few podcasts, when I thought they were already downloaded - that chewed through my data allowance very quickly...

Cheers, Pete

 

[RogerS]

Is there not an App that allows you to see what data is being used, surly there must be. It should allow you to set a data limit which if exceeded would enable an alarm. My PC allows me to see the activity on the CPU and Memory. Of course if there were such an App the providers profits my decline, can't have that.

There is on Android and I'd be surprised if there wasn't one for the iPhone.

EDIT: Here we go http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/data-usa ... 50560?mt=8

 

[RogerS]

I know Apple assures that such things couldn't possibly get past their screening process, but I very much doubt that that's completely true - I would worry that one of the applications I had on my phone was either doing dodgy stuff in secret, or was buggy and was chewing through data it didn't need.

Oh yes - and don't leave apps running in the background. I make a point of killing all apps once I'm done with them and barely charge it 2-3 times a week.

I don't know how relevant this is for iPhone users, since I don't own one myself either - but I'd expect it's probably a similar situation.

On Android, killing applications which aren't 'awake' - actually displaying stuff to the screen right now - doesn't really do much. You can free up a bit of RAM, but it doesn't take the unit more or less power to keep the RAM in use or not, and as I understand it the OS will properly suspend those apps which aren't being used if more RAM is needed by another app. Applications which need to (or think they need to!) run in the background - things which perform periodic monitoring, alerts, etc. - will install a system service which runs independently of the application itself.

.....

I'd love to be able to kill all those crap apps that are running in the background on my Samsung. Like Social Hub, Yahoo Finance, Accuweather, Yahoo News, wifi sharing manager, email (two of 'em). I stop 'em running but as soon as my back is turned, the buggers come back to life again.

 

[paulm]

Having finally got round to enabling the phone to use the home wifi (where it is most of the time recently), the data usage today has been negligible, a few kb, having sent/received a few emails and texts, and tested a few apps for an hour or so each with no alarming results. Battery usage has only fallen to 77% this evening from a full charge overnight having killed all the apps on the bottom bar just to be sure nothing unnecessary was running in the background, and that is probably the best battery life experienced to date.

So a bit inconclusive so far, having properly enabled the wifi at home is I guess having the biggest effect, killing the apps after use does seem to be majorily improving battery life but will see how it goes tomorrow....

Couldn't see if that usage app actually tells you what has been using the data and how much Roger, or just tells you the usage to date against allowance which is less helpful ?

Cheers, Paul

 

[JakeS]

I'd love to be able to kill all those rubbish apps that are running in the background on my Samsung. Like Social Hub, Yahoo Finance, Accuweather, Yahoo News, wifi sharing manager, email (two of 'em). I stop 'em running but as soon as my back is turned, the buggers come back to life again.

I believe that the 'proper' way to get a service to stop restarting is to uninstall the application which owns that service.

If you bought your phone from a mobile provider, unfortunately the problem is that they've probably "helpfully" marked a load of apps as system applications and not given you root (admin) access over your own phone so you can't get rid of them. Personally I'd be kind of tempted to wander into one of their shops on a Saturday afternoon (for maximum audience potential) and politely but loudly insist that they give me control over my own telephone, but it'd probably be more productive to search around online for "how to get root on android" and follow an appropriate online tutorial for your phone to do it yourself.

(I bought my phone direct without going through a mobile provider for exactly that reason. Smartphones chew through batteries quickly enough without having useless facebook and twitter apps eating up CPU time when I have no interest in either of their services! One of the few advantages I see iOS definitely has over Android is that Apple are big enough and have a significant enough market that they can get away with insisting providers don't monkey too much with their phones.)

 

[RogerS]

I'd love to be able to kill all those rubbish apps that are running in the background on my Samsung. Like Social Hub, Yahoo Finance, Accuweather, Yahoo News, wifi sharing manager, email (two of 'em). I stop 'em running but as soon as my back is turned, the buggers come back to life again.

I believe that the 'proper' way to get a service to stop restarting is to uninstall the application which owns that service.

If you bought your phone from a mobile provider, unfortunately the problem is that they've probably "helpfully" marked a load of apps as system applications and not given you root (admin) access over your own phone so you can't get rid of them. Personally I'd be kind of tempted to wander into one of their shops on a Saturday afternoon (for maximum audience potential) and politely but loudly insist that they give me control over my own telephone, but it'd probably be more productive to search around online for "how to get root on android" and follow an appropriate online tutorial for your phone to do it yourself.

(I bought my phone direct without going through a mobile provider for exactly that reason. Smartphones chew through batteries quickly enough without having useless facebook and twitter apps eating up CPU time when I have no interest in either of their services! One of the few advantages I see iOS definitely has over Android is that Apple are big enough and have a significant enough market that they can get away with insisting providers don't monkey too much with their phones.)

That's the conclusion that I came to. Good call on your part. Too many other TUITs in the way and so I'll have to live with it.

Quick question....is there an easy way to re-arrange which apps appear in which 'page' on Android. Googled without much success but probably using the wrong search terms.

 

[JakeS]

Quick question....is there an easy way to re-arrange which apps appear in which 'page' on Android. Googled without much success but probably using the wrong search terms.

Yep - go to the Applications pages, hit the phone's menu button, choose 'edit', and a load of apps (all the ones which aren't marked as system) will have minus signs appear at the corner. If you tap that it uninstalls them, but if you press and hold there'll be a quick vibrate and the icon shades and from that point you can drag it around to re-arrange. Drag to the sides of the screen to move to the next page.

The same press-and-hold approach will also let you move icons around on the home pages without going into an edit mode, and if you press-and-drag an icon on the Applications pages without being in edit mode it'll allow you to position that icon on one of your home pages.


(Apologies for the off-topic thread invasion!)

 

[RogerS]

Thanks Jake.

 

[Harbo]

I've just upgraded to ios6 and now seem to be suffering battery "eating" - used 25% in 2 hrs with very little use.
My apps are mainly the same except I had to download Google Maps as Apple are now using their own version?
Will have to investigate?

Rod

 

[RogerS]

I've just upgraded to ios6 and now seem to be suffering battery "eating" - used 25% in 2 hrs with very little use.
My apps are mainly the same except I had to download Google Maps as Apple are now using their own version?
Will have to investigate?

Rod

You are not alone. 31 pages and rising...https://discussions.apple.com/thread/43 ... 5&tstart=0 and which is why before I carry out any major upgrade I wait a while and see what crawls out of the woodwork in the way of 'features' !

 

[Harbo]

Oh dear hopefully 6.01 will appear soon?

Rod

 

[paulm]

Sorry to hear that Rod, I think I'll wait till you figure it out before I upgrade then !

Not had any more problems with mine to date, and testing out some of the apps hasn't revealed anything, so really don't know what caused it, weird ! But good it doesn't seem to be ongoing

Cheers, Paul