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iPad My iPad Air 2 has drained my cellular data!

Bromio said:
But for checking for e-mails, searching the Wikipedia while reading if I have some question and checking for Twitter mentions do I need a huge amount of data?

I plan to to this one hour or so every day.

Those are my goals. No music, no photos, no videos: for those I will use WiFi.
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That should be fine depending on how much data you have in your plan. But you got to make sure you are not allowing your iPad to do anything else in the background via cellular. When you take your device out of the box, it is likely not restricting cellualr and it is using it like it were hooked up to WiFi.

I use wifi both at the house and office and leave it on at all times. Only when I am out in the field and where there is no WiFi do I turn on cellular for stuff I have to get done. Make sure you are restricting cellular from doing anything except what you want or it will use it for stuff that is not important. I turn cellular back off when not in use.
 
Newtons Apple said:
That should be fine depending on how much data you have in your plan. But you got to make sure you are not allowing your iPad to do anything else in the background via cellular. When you take your device out of the box, it is likely not restricting cellualr and it is using it like it were hooked up to WiFi.

I use wifi both at the house and office and leave it on at all times. Only when I am out in the field and where there is no WiFi do I turn on cellular for stuff I have to get done. Make sure you are restricting cellular from doing anything except what you want or it will use it for stuff that is not important. I turn cellular back off when not in use.
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Say I have 1GB of data. I can't pay 5GB for read e-mails, tweeting and Wikipedia one hour or two hours a day. If I were going to streaming, it could be another thing, but that's not my situation.

Restricting cellular, for the stuff I have indicated, could 1GB be enough? If not, I will have to return the iPad.
 
Bromio said:
Say I have 1GB of data. I can't pay 5GB for read e-mails, tweeting and Wikipedia one hour or two hours a day. If I were going to streaming, it could be another thing, but that's not my situation.

Restricting cellular, for the stuff I have indicated, could 1GB be enough? If not, I will have to return the iPad.
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if you are just using it as above then 1GB should be ok. I would suggest going into settings > mail and turning off load remote images and reduce the sync period for mail to further reduce the usage though.

You may also want to switch off mobile data under safari for cloud tabs and reading list sync.

Maybe the easiest this is to turn off mobile data for everything and then just turn it on as you come to an app that you need it for. Probably turn off push services for email, manually check for new messages and also turn off background app updating.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bromio said:
Say I have 1GB of data. I can't pay 5GB for read e-mails, tweeting and Wikipedia one hour or two hours a day. If I were going to streaming, it could be another thing, but that's not my situation.

Restricting cellular, for the stuff I have indicated, could 1GB be enough? If not, I will have to return the iPad.
Click to expand...

It will be tough. Like the other poster said you would need to stop cellular from being used except for the most basic email and text services. Most of my data is used from sending images to my customers who can not wait till I get back to WiFi. You just need to make sure you got all the settings set to restrict data while on cellualr.
 
Newtons Apple said:
It will be tough. Like the other poster said you would need to stop cellular from being used except for the most basic email and text services. Most of my data is used from sending images to my customers who can not wait till I get back to WiFi. You just need to make sure you got all the settings set to restrict data while on cellualr.
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Why it does not consume just like my smartphone? I use 600MB monthly and it works OK, being connected all the day to the cellular network.

In my computer I used to consume 500MB monthly via USB dongle. I though the iPad would have a similar comsumption.

If I uploaded images, I would understand such a high usage.
 
Bromio said:
Why it does not consume just like my smartphone? I use 600MB monthly and it works OK, being connected all the day to the cellular network.

In my computer I used to consume 500MB monthly via USB dongle. I though the iPad would have a similar comsumption.

If I uploaded images, I would understand such a high usage.
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Well then continue on and keep track of your data usage leaving the cell data on at all times. Let us know how you do.:)
 
Newtons Apple said:
Well then continue on and keep track of your data usage leaving the cell data on at all times. Let us know how you do.:)
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Are you being sarcastic?

For me this is important, because I have till next Saturday to return my iPad Air 2. I could change it for a WiFi model, but I'm afraid I would have the same problem, as I had to tether, plus my smartphone battery drain, which would be unavoidable.
 
Bromio said:
Are you being sarcastic?

For me this is important, because I have till next Saturday to return my iPad Air 2. I could change it for a WiFi model, but I'm afraid I would have the same problem, as I had to tether, plus my smartphone battery drain, which would be unavoidable.
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Not being sarcastic.

I can not imagine getting by with 1GB a month but then your needs are different than mine. Best you can do is track your data usage every day and make you choice as to if you keep or return your device.

I could not live with the battery drain on my 5S by teathering so I moved to the cellular iPad and would not have it any other way. I am lucky as AT&T gave me a bundle on our office phone which included the 5GB of data which I assigned to my iPad Air 2. It mean it is free as the bundle costs less than what I was paying for my office phones before the bundle.
 
Newtons Apple said:
Not being sarcastic.

I can not imagine getting by with 1GB a month but then your needs are different than mine. Best you can do is track your data usage every day and make you choice as to if you keep or return your device.

I could not live with the battery drain on my 5S by teathering so I moved to the cellular iPad and would not have it any other way. I am lucky as AT&T gave me a bundle on our office phone which included the 5GB of data which I assigned to my iPad Air 2. It mean it is free as the bundle costs less than what I was paying for my office phones before the bundle.
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Thank you.

I understand your use needs much more data than the mine.

I just have one more question:
If my iPad is sleeping or is executing an app that does not use cellular data (iBooks for reading a PDF, for example), would it consume noticeable data? Assume I've disabled all unnecessary syncing stuff.

I think I don't need too much use of data, but very often.
 
Bromio said:
Thank you.

I understand your use needs much more data than the mine.

I just have one more question:
If my iPad is sleeping or is executing an app that does not use cellular data (iBooks for reading a PDF, for example), would it consume noticeable data? Assume I've disabled all unnecessary syncing stuff.

I think I don't need too much use of data, but very often.
Click to expand...

From my experience, unless you turn data off your device will use some data. Part ebcause your device will occasionally "bark" at the closest tower to let it know where you are. There could also be other data used for other reasons.

Best way to tell is to try it. Get out of everything except what you want/need and leave your device alone for a while and see if it uses data. May not use as much but in 24 hours it will add up.
 
Newtons Apple said:
From my experience, unless you turn data off your device will use some data. Part ebcause your device will occasionally "bark" at the closest tower to let it know where you are. There could also be other data used for other reasons.

Best way to tell is to try it. Get out of everything except what you want/need and leave your device alone for a while and see if it uses data. May not use as much but in 24 hours it will add up.
Click to expand...

Thank you. If it takes 2 or 3 MB daily it is not a problem. I will analyze the device and say you the results.
 
Newtons Apple said:
You need to turn off cellular and use WiFi
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I have my iPad on the free 200MB plan by T-Mobile. I never turn off the cellular. I use it quite a bit at home on Wifi and cellular data usage is minimal.

I don't know what may have caused the excessive data usage by Safari that OP saw, unless perhaps the Verge web site loaded a picture gallery or a video in the background. The OP didn't post which article he read, but The Verge is notoriously heavy on images and Javascript "magic", so it's entirely possible.
 
Rigby said:
I have my iPad on the free 200MB plan by T-Mobile. I never turn off the cellular. I use it quite a bit at home on Wifi and cellular data usage is minimal.

I don't know what may have caused the excessive data usage by Safari that OP saw, unless perhaps the Verge web site loaded a picture gallery or a video in the background. The OP didn't post which article he read, but The Verge is notoriously heavy on images and Javascript "magic", so it's entirely possible.
Click to expand...

This was the article:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/3/7148087/nexus-9-review
 
Hello:

I've found out that The Verge was the source of all my troubles. It looks like it preloads the videos without user permission.

Anyway, I've disabled many useless sync tasks while connecting via cellular. I will post my conclusions and configurations along this week.

Thank you all for your help!
 
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