iPhone 4S Data Usage Has Doubled?

Many of us expected the iPhone 5 to be released to the market in 2011. Apple did not offer major design changes in the iPhone 4S. But the addition of Siri has been a golden move. It just happens that iPhone 4S users consume twice as much data as iPhone 4 owners. Technology firm Arieso has put together a study that shows how data consumption has increased dramatically on iPhone 4S (in comparison to older iPhones).

The study shows that the iPhone 4S consumes more data than older iPhones and iPads. The Siri virtual assistant seems to be contributing a lot to this increase. Data usage has been going up since 2007. But the latest Apple phone consumes 3 times as much data as the iPhone 3GS.

I use the iPhone 4 myself and when I first heard of the iPhone 4S features I was not compelled to rush out and get one. However, the data usage numbers I am seeing make me wonder what I am missing

said Arieso’s chief technology officer, Michael Flanagan. Tablets are mainly being used as entertainment devices. We can think of them as larger smartphones (in terms of data usage). Siri does happen to use 63KB data per query. This may not seem much but it quickly adds up if you use Siri a whole lot everyday.

Carriers have been working hard to stop heavy data users from putting too much load on their networks (without having to pay the costs). The days of unlimited data plans are over. Considering that the high-use subscribers downloaded half of the data volumes, we can’t blame these companies for their approach. It will be interesting to see how carriers keep pace with the growth in data usage in the upcoming years.