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Average iPhone Consumer Data Usage Pegged at Five Times That of BlackBerry
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While I'm sure iPhone users probably browse/download a lot more than other users this report is also a bit misleading because it doesn't take into consideration the fact that other devices also have features that compress data and network strain, whereas the iPhone does not.
For example, BlackBerry Internet Service compresses data downloaded over the web by up to 80%. That's a pretty big chunk and makes AT&T's and the rest of the carriers very happy. It also cache's a lot of information on the device and on BlackBerry's service.
The iPhone on the other hand, doesn't even cache email and has absolutely zero features that compressed or optimizes anything. Take email as the biggest insult to injury for networks. If you subscribe to something like a newsletter that has images the iPhone has to download the images (from the network). When you close the email, it's temporarily cached as long as you don't open anything else. The iPhone ONLY saves the very last thing you opened. So, the second you view a different email, re-opening the original newsletter will result in yet ANOTHER network download. Other devices cache this information so you don't have to redownload.
point being, the iPhone is the most inefficient device on the planet because Apple chose to let the network do all the heavy lifting for virtually everything.
For example, BlackBerry Internet Service compresses data downloaded over the web by up to 80%. That's a pretty big chunk and makes AT&T's and the rest of the carriers very happy. It also cache's a lot of information on the device and on BlackBerry's service.
The iPhone on the other hand, doesn't even cache email and has absolutely zero features that compressed or optimizes anything. Take email as the biggest insult to injury for networks. If you subscribe to something like a newsletter that has images the iPhone has to download the images (from the network). When you close the email, it's temporarily cached as long as you don't open anything else. The iPhone ONLY saves the very last thing you opened. So, the second you view a different email, re-opening the original newsletter will result in yet ANOTHER network download. Other devices cache this information so you don't have to redownload.
point being, the iPhone is the most inefficient device on the planet because Apple chose to let the network do all the heavy lifting for virtually everything.
I have pretty good internet on the road and much faster internet at home.
You have pretty good internet on the road and pretty good internet at home.
So we're paying the same amount but I'm getting way better service than you. And you're asking ME why I do things the way I do?
If everyone used a browser like Opera Mini, Skyfire or Blackberry with internet proxies, then we could cut network usage by almost an order of magnitude.
It makes zero sense to use bandwidth and battery to download stuff like multi-megabyte images that you're not looking at close up.
One day, it won't be necessary. But right now, it would make sense. Just as offloading to WiFi does (if it could be made invulnerable to evil twin attacks).
It makes zero sense to use bandwidth and battery to download stuff like multi-megabyte images that you're not looking at close up.
One day, it won't be necessary. But right now, it would make sense. Just as offloading to WiFi does (if it could be made invulnerable to evil twin attacks).
Interesting Numbers
Although I agree with the forum consesus as the iPhone is a better tool for going on the internet and all data related activities therefore more use.
The blackberry does have a really neat feature when used with BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server). It can effectivelly compress all e-mail coming in to less than 1kb and strip accidental attachments. This allows for push like services with super low data use. This may contribute to low data usage. This was useful in the older days when data was really $$$$
I prefers Apples way to do things though, build an insane fun product to use with millions of apps, forcing user demand and making companies scramble to deliver reliable wireless data.
Although I agree with the forum consesus as the iPhone is a better tool for going on the internet and all data related activities therefore more use.
The blackberry does have a really neat feature when used with BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server). It can effectivelly compress all e-mail coming in to less than 1kb and strip accidental attachments. This allows for push like services with super low data use. This may contribute to low data usage. This was useful in the older days when data was really $$$$
I prefers Apples way to do things though, build an insane fun product to use with millions of apps, forcing user demand and making companies scramble to deliver reliable wireless data.
And we're paying, too
I have an AT&T Quicksilver card. I pay $35/mo for 200MB of data. I have an iPhone. If I am an average iPhone user, I pay $30/mo for.... about 200 MB of data.
Now, I can place phone calls with my iPhone, which I can't do with the Quicksilver, but I pay separately for that part of the service anyway. I don't see how AT&T has much of a complaint - they charge about the same price for approximately the same amount of service. If they're complaining that iPhone users actually *USE* what they pay for (as opposed to other smartphone users), well, that just tears me the **** up.
P.s. I wonder how much of that data is garbage data sent back and forth as part of speed tests?
I have an AT&T Quicksilver card. I pay $35/mo for 200MB of data. I have an iPhone. If I am an average iPhone user, I pay $30/mo for.... about 200 MB of data.
Now, I can place phone calls with my iPhone, which I can't do with the Quicksilver, but I pay separately for that part of the service anyway. I don't see how AT&T has much of a complaint - they charge about the same price for approximately the same amount of service. If they're complaining that iPhone users actually *USE* what they pay for (as opposed to other smartphone users), well, that just tears me the **** up.
P.s. I wonder how much of that data is garbage data sent back and forth as part of speed tests?
I don't see how AT&T has much of a complaint -
... If they're complaining that iPhone users actually *USE* what they pay for (as opposed to other smartphone users), well, that just tears me the **** up.
Well, since this is a 'Consumer Reports' survey I don't see how AT&T is complaining about anything. There's no comment from them one way or the other.
How much of this is due to differences in usage patterns and how much is du to differences in data compression techniques by the device?
I'm a fairly heavy BlackBerry user - 30-40 emails a day, constant BBMing, frequent facebooking and tweeting and a bit of surfing, and my usage hovers around 20-30MB/month. It's all because of the way BBs compress data. This is a huge benefit for me, because it means I can comfortably use a lower-tier data plan, which is cheaper (I get 150MB for $15/month - saving $10/month vs the lowest iPhone plan).
I'm a fairly heavy BlackBerry user - 30-40 emails a day, constant BBMing, frequent facebooking and tweeting and a bit of surfing, and my usage hovers around 20-30MB/month. It's all because of the way BBs compress data. This is a huge benefit for me, because it means I can comfortably use a lower-tier data plan, which is cheaper (I get 150MB for $15/month - saving $10/month vs the lowest iPhone plan).
It is not that force bb so much lower than other smart phones. It is the fact that all web browsering is either going threw a bis/bes server that compresses the data and strips out useless crap from the stream the phone has no use for. That reduces the data quite a bit.
The other browser on the bb (bolt and oprea) go threw a proxy and do the same thing as well reducing the data used on the phone.
Email is compressed a lot and attachments are not sent unless the user request them on the phone. No point to send them unless needed. A lot of html coding is stripped out on emails due to the small screen size and so on.
RIM has data compression for phone down to a near exact science because they started doing it when data on networks was very costly.
the iPhone does not have 3rd party browser that use proxies to compress the sites and stripe out data that is no use on the phone. It easier to navigate and has some data hog apps.
Sum it up rim is so much lower than others because of the massive compression done on anything that uses data on the phone
And their point is?
Is it that iPhones are data hogs?
Because I wouldn't blame the device if the network can't handle the usage. They know the max data bandwidth of each device, so they should be maintaining their network for the worst possible scenario (100% max bandwidth on 100% of devices).
Or is it that blackberry devices just don't have the same data demands that iPhones (with all their apps) do?
:-\
Is it that iPhones are data hogs?
Because I wouldn't blame the device if the network can't handle the usage. They know the max data bandwidth of each device, so they should be maintaining their network for the worst possible scenario (100% max bandwidth on 100% of devices).
Or is it that blackberry devices just don't have the same data demands that iPhones (with all their apps) do?
:-\
Actually, there is evidence that in several countries (including the US), building more roads and extending the present ones do not solve the problem of congestion. In this case, more reliable and faster networks would cause customers and developers taking advantage of the improved facilities, so there would be always network problems, until the phone company spent so much, that their shareholders kicked the whole boardroom out.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
No suprise! Personally
No suprise! Personally
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
Exactly! I have a blackberry aswell as an iPhone and using the bb for anything other than business you can forget it
SandynJosh said:
Exactly! I have a blackberry aswell as an iPhone and using the bb for anything other than business you can forget it
Is it me, or is that the worst bar graph ever made? All I do is look at it and I see iPhone, low. Other phones, high. Then I try to figure out the axis. percentage of users and 0-50, 50-100. What? Bizarre. They should be swapped. Or maybe it just shouldn't have been made at all.
Blackberry = Superior communication device
iPhone = Not so good communication device
I'd also had to the fact the iPhone users download loads of crap apps they don't use at all.
The blackberry's web browser is adequate enough to check footy scores, quickly gain some info from mobile websites. Why do you need to do more? Can't wait to see Blackberry's webkit browser though.
This all just shows how much time iPhone users waste web browsing from a tiny screen 5 times more
.I agree the chart is very misleading... that said, I think what they were going for was more of a population histogram (think bell curve) than traditional trend-based histogram. From that point of view, if you connect all the iPhone bars to approximate a population distribution, you can see that the iPhone curve is somewhat "normal" (i.e. normally distributed) compared to the obviously skewed-to-the-low side population of the alternative, the very scientific and informative "Most other smart phone" category.
In general, when showing population comparisons, I've found that it's best to show smoothed line approximations and not go the bar chart route and, if you do use a bar chart, don't put much space between your bins... I'd say that the probability that whoever made this chart has a statistical background is rather low (sorry for the lame statistics pun...
)Population Distribution Histograms... more bars in more places!
It all boils down to these punk kids with their iPhones...
Always YouTubing, Twittering, and worst of all... that new fangled Rock 'n Roll!
It's the end of civilization as we know it!
Always YouTubing, Twittering, and worst of all... that new fangled Rock 'n Roll!
It's the end of civilization as we know it!
Wow, really? More than 1GB is in the top 10%? I use about 2GB, so I'm probably in the top 5%.
Streaming internet radio, YouTube, tethering and just using a lot of internet add up quickly.
Love Canada and my $30/unlimited data plan.
Unlimited? Really? What provider? I'm with Fido and I pay 30$ for 6 Gb.
Thats it??
I am sitting at 11 days used of the 28 in my biling cycle.
I have used 2983.59 MB of Unlimited data. Not much WiFi away from the house.
I stream movies from the internet, watch live TV via Sling (on 3G of course), and surf quite a bit. I ussulay come close to 6 GB a month.
I am sitting at 11 days used of the 28 in my biling cycle.
I have used 2983.59 MB of Unlimited data. Not much WiFi away from the house.
I stream movies from the internet, watch live TV via Sling (on 3G of course), and surf quite a bit. I ussulay come close to 6 GB a month.
This reminds me of one of my first dates... the girl I was with ran into some of her friends at the restaurant who said, "who are you here with." Her response, as she pointed at me, was the quote above
Data is compressed on the iPhone as well. It's just not all text data like on the bb
