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iMessage using MASSIVE amounts of data!

G

gentlefury

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 21, 2011
2,889
68
Los Angeles, CA
I reset my phone statistics the other day and I went out and sent an iMessage. I looked at my usage and it was at 2.1MB...and all I did was send an iMessage! I turned off iMessage and have only used txt since then (I have unlimited so why waste data anyway) and I have used 25MB total since then, and I use my phone a lot to go on facebook and web surf.

Why would a message that should take, at most half a kb use 2.1MB???
 
gentlefury said:
I reset my phone statistics the other day and I went out and sent an iMessage. I looked at my usage and it was at 2.1MB...and all I did was send an iMessage! I turned off iMessage and have only used txt since then (I have unlimited so why waste data anyway) and I have used 25MB total since then, and I use my phone a lot to go on facebook and web surf.

Why would a message that should take, at most half a kb use 2.1MB???
Click to expand...

Just turn off iMessage
 
macher said:
Just turn off iMessage
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for that.

Now go back and read what I wrote and you will see I already did.

How did you verify the phone wasn't doing something else at the same time?
Click to expand...

I used 2.1 MB as soon as I turned on my phone in about a minute (I checked it when I first turned it on) and then used 25MB over the next 24 hours after I disabled it.
 
PNutts said:
How did you verify the phone wasn't doing something else at the same time?
Click to expand...

^This

If you did a restore and a backup perhaps it was downloading previous messages in the background ?? Just a thought
 
gentlefury said:
I used 2.1 MB as soon as I turned on my phone in about a minute (I checked it when I first turned it on) and then used 25MB over the next 24 hours after I disabled it.
Click to expand...

Not being argumentative, but a minute is a long time transfering high speed data and I'm curious if iCloud or something else reached out during that brief connection. Also, I've seen threads in the forum that describe the counter 1. iusn't accurate, and 2. can include data that was not sent.

I agree that both of those sound far fetched, so I'll simply say that kind of data usage hasn't been my experience (and I don't remember seeing it discussed before) and I assume something else was running.

It would be interesting if you can reproduce it and also turn on iMessage and don't send a message to see if data traffic is generated.
 
gentlefury said:
Why would a message that should take, at most half a kb use 2.1MB???
Click to expand...

First and foremost we clearly have differing opinions on how much is a lot of data and secondlyy guess is you phone probably checked email or any of a 1000 other functions it does behind the scenes. If iMessage used this amount of data I would be using twice asuch data as I do each month.
 
I just reset my statistics and sent an iMessage. It sent only a few KB. And considering that one MB = 1024KB, you would have to send quite a bit of iMessages to get to 2.1MB.

Like others have said, unless you're using iMessage to share videos and pictures, it shouldn't be using that much. There are several things that your phone could be doing while you're not using it. iCloud backups, email fetching data, or maybe even your Facebook timeline updating or something.

How much data do you have included in your plan?
 
Applejuiced said:
iMessage doesn't use much data at all unless you're sending and receiving pics and videos through it.
It's prob something else.
And 2.1mb is not massive amounts of data.
Click to expand...

2.1MB is massive amounts of data if that is a one sentence txt message. That would mean 200 would equal a GB.
 
gentlefury said:
2.1MB is massive amounts of data if that is a one sentence txt message. That would mean 200 would equal a GB.
Click to expand...

Dude, I just sent myself a 4,200 character iMessage that took 37 KBs to send. Then another 37 KBs to receive since I was sending it to myself. Now, to get to 1 MB, you need 1024 KBs correct? It would take you 27.6756756757 text messages with 4,200 characters to even amount to a MB. You need another 1,024 MBs, to get to 1 GB right? So let's multiply that. The result would be 28339.8918919 messages with 4,200 characters to amount to 1 GBs of cellular usage.

Your math, is totally off. The only way you'll ever reach a 1 GB of usage with 200 iMessages is if you're sending pictures. Which if you are, then that's your problem, not iMessages itself. There's also a chance that another app is eating your data and you just don't know it.
 
Idea:

Try sending another iMessage and see how much data that uses.

Wait until iMessage has verified your phone number before trying that.

Worst case scenario is that you use another 2.1MB - is that really a big problem?
 
ProudLoz said:
Dude, I just sent myself a 4,200 character iMessage that took 37 KBs to send. Then another 37 KBs to receive since I was sending it to myself. Now, to get to 1 MB, you need 1024 KBs correct? It would take you 27.6756756757 text messages with 4,200 characters to even amount to a MB. You need another 1,024 MBs, to get to 1 GB right? So let's multiply that. The result would be 28339.8918919 messages with 4,200 characters to amount to 1 GBs of cellular usage.

Your math, is totally off. The only way you'll ever reach a 1 GB of usage with 200 iMessages is if you're sending pictures. Which if you are, then that's your problem, not iMessages itself. There's also a chance that another app is eating your data and you just don't know it.
Click to expand...

Dude, that is what I would expect. I was merely explaining my situation.
 
Were you sending pics? That's what really eats up the data.
In a few MBs, you can probably send thousands of "text" messages.

I use iMessage to send messages to my friends' iPods. Much nicer than having them text on their phones for some reasons. Probably because I know they'll actually get the pics and vids I send them. Lot of times, they can't open it on their phones
 
a revelation of how petty my problems are now after being notified of how much data is being wasted on a text message after this post.

so long starving humans i have other **** to worry about. data usage on my ****in unlimited data plan!
 
Nykwil said:
so long starving humans i have other **** to worry about. data usage on my ****in unlimited data plan!
Click to expand...

I'm sure the starving humans will deal without your (awesome) help as you have plenty of petty threads to manage:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1119515/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1344192/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1119446/

Posts such as your quotes above are meaningless and not helpful. What percentage of threads on these forums do you figure are problems exclusive of developed nations and are less important than starving children? I'm guessing around 99%. These "arguments" are trite, at best. I won't say what they are on the other end of the spectrum as it will just be bleeped regardless.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
gentlefury said:
I reset my phone statistics the other day and I went out and sent an iMessage. I looked at my usage and it was at 2.1MB...and all I did was send an iMessage! I turned off iMessage and have only used txt since then (I have unlimited so why waste data anyway) and I have used 25MB total since then, and I use my phone a lot to go on facebook and web surf.

Why would a message that should take, at most half a kb use 2.1MB???
Click to expand...

"MASSIVE"! LOL!

I also just checked and several txts took only a few kb.:p
 
Applejuiced said:
iMessage doesn't use much data at all unless you're sending and receiving pics and videos through it.
It's prob something else.
And 2.1mb is not massive amounts of data.
Click to expand...


+1, I am using it all the time and I blocked SMS service since I am text-ing to my family only and they all with iphones/att. No any significant loss of data found with iMessage. It is great option and we all love it.
 
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