How to change period over which data is measured?

[laz232]

Got an iPhone 5 a few weeks ago. Have a data plan with 1GB/month running from the 1st-31st of the month, after which it resets.

How do I change the mobile data counter in IOS9 to tally up the data from 1-31 of the month (this is trivial to do on Android) - I can only find an option to reset the counter.

 

[cynics]

You can't. Strange huh? I've always thought it was strange to see it calculated with no duration setting.

Some carriers have apps or you can set a reminder to remind you to reset it every month.

 

[laz232]

Ok, thanks. Dissappointed that this trivial feature is not built in.

 

[cynics]

Ok, thanks. Dissappointed that this trivial feature is not built in.

I believe the reason why, and this is just a guess is like Android the OS calculating data usage can vary from actual usage and/or usage the cell carrier claims. Some could find Apple financially liable for any miscalculations.

I don't know if its gotten any better but when I was using Jelly Bean I found a 200-500 mb discrepancy between Android recorded data use and Verizon reported data use at ~5gb of a 10gb data plan. So it didnt really matter to me however on a smaller data plan that is used to near its max could cause problems. Especially considering you only need to go over 1mb before you reap the consequences of additional fees and/or no data/throttling.

 

[bransoj]

As apple say there is an app for that...and a free one at that :-

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/my-data-manager-track-your/id477865384?mt=8

Pretty simple to use and setup and when i ran it for a couple of months it seemed to work fine. I'm on unlimited data though so ditched it as didnt really need to monitor it.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

EDIT: Didn't read all the replies fully, didn't add anything.

 

[ashindnile]

This is perhaps the biggest android feature that I miss on iOS.
Setting a monthly reminder does little to alleviate the concern. Mobile data is very expensive in most places still.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

I definitely see the appeal of having the data cycle automatically but setting a reminder and resetting it manually is hardly difficult; let's keep things in perspective, folks.

 

[bransoj]

For the record the app i mentioned above actually has a today notification centre widget as well so to check its just a case of pulling that down rather than messing about burying down into the settings menus to find the info.