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who uses wifi on their 3g and why?

P

psudude

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 2, 2008
26
0
I have a iphone 3g, and I am wondering if anyone uses their wifi on theirs a lot. I am home and sometimes use my wifi connection here, but not all the time. I am debating if I should just keep it on wifi when I am home, or should only use it once in a while.

Just want to gauge what the overal consensus is about wifi usage
 
Umm... I use wifi 95 percent of the time at home and the other %5 is when the connection is lost so 3G kicks in. I don't know why you wouldn't want to use wifi, its much faster and doesn't kill your battery like 3G.
 
and also, when you get your bill, you won't have like 50 pages of data transfer info, because you were using wifi. Wifi is so much faster...
 
i only get gprs at home, so have to use wifi :)

and out and about on o2 you get free wi-fi pretty much everywhere, and as others have said, its faster and uses less power
 
I use wifi all the time, at home and at work. That's why I couldn't justify upgrading my v1 iPhone to the 3G iphone. The only time I'm not using wifi is out on the street or pulling up a map in the car. Wifi rules.
 
Wifi is easier to transfer pictures from my phone to a persons email, I take a lot of pictures with my phone so its easier to get on wifi to send them.
 
aman29 said:
wait i have a question, on your bill does it show evey website you have visited?:confused:
Click to expand...

If they do, it'll list all the porn you were looking at over the past month! Hide it! Or else the Clerics will come after you for possession of contraband. And you can't escape from them. Especially if it's John Preston.


Does anyone know if when connected to WiFi, does it turn 3G off? Or is it still connected to 3G unless you turn the 3G off under Settings?
 
RoboCop001 said:
If they do, it'll list all the porn you were looking at over the past month! Hide it! Or else the Clerics will come after you for possession of contraband.


Does anyone know if when connected to WiFi, does it turn 3G off? Or is it still connected to 3G unless you turn the 3G off under Settings?
Click to expand...
you're still connected to 3g
 
I use WiFi when it's available because it's fast and the connection is much more consistent than 3G or Edge. It's often faster to just stay on 3G though. Usually, WiFi is not available though, and if it is I probably have access to a full computer.

aman29 said:
wait i have a question, on your bill does it show evey website you have visited?:confused:
Click to expand...
They email all the porn sites you have visited to your mother.
Lol. The bill only lists "total data" like the "usage" under settings on your phone.

FYI: I'm typing this from the passenger's seat onacross country trip out in the middle of nowhere from my iPhone3G using EDGE.
 
For all you guys that leave wifi on all the time, do you have it set up so that it just automatically connects to whatever wifi hotspot is available or does it ask you every time? The reason I ask is because I've always been told to leave wifi off unless you specifically need or want to use it because it kills your battery. If you do leave it on all the time, I would think you would have it set up to just automatically connect because that's the only way you can guarantee that your phone will always have a broadband connection (if it has to ask you every time, what's the point?). From what you guys are saying here, 3G is more of a battery drain so that's why you keep wifi on. Coming from Sprint and CDMA, I've always been told that wifi will drain your battery much faster than EVDO but maybe it's different with AT&T's 3G.

If you leave it on all the time, does it always grab a 3G signal first or does it grab a wifi signal first and then switch to 3G or Edge when wifi isn't available?
 
psywzrd said:
The reason I ask is because I've always been told to leave wifi off unless you specifically need or want to use it because it kills your battery.
Click to expand...

Leave it off when you're AWAY from a hotspot.

It will kill your battery all day LOOKING for Wi-Fi hotspots. It just keeps searching and never finding anything.

When I'm at home I leave it connected to my home network and that seems just fine. I think it just checks in when it needs to and then ignores it when it doesn't. I haven't noticed a huge battery drain because of it.
 
I use WiFi! And yes I leave both my router and my iPhone's wifi on all the time!
Why- Speed!
And battery isnt really that important a factor at home since in the end you're always near a power source!
 
iPlayer from the BBC
General browsing on the internet via the iPhone
Skyhook has the MACs of local hotspots, so it helps with GPS times
Battery
 
psudude said:
I have a iphone 3g, and I am wondering if anyone uses their wifi on theirs a lot. I am home and sometimes use my wifi connection here, but not all the time. I am debating if I should just keep it on wifi when I am home, or should only use it once in a while.

Just want to gauge what the overal consensus is about wifi usage
Click to expand...

I use wifi at home because its faster (i have 12.0mbps internet)

i use 3G when i'm not at home (outside)
 
It doesn't look for wi-fi, until you need to use it. There is no reason to turn it on and off. The phone knows to automatically go from wi-fi to 3G to Edge, depending on what is available. The only problem with that is it'll keep you on a weak 3G signal over a strong Edge signal. This has been discussed here before.

And no there is no way to see what your surf as long as you clear the history on the iPhone itself.
 
Cynicalone said:
It doesn't look for wi-fi, until you need to use it. There is no reason to turn it on and off.
Click to expand...

So what you're saying here is that as long as you have a 3G or Edge signal, the iphone will not look for a wifi signal. As soon as you lose 3G or Edge, the iphone will look for an available wifi signal. Is that accurate? In other words, the iphone looks for 3G, Edge, and wifi in that order?
 
psywzrd said:
So what you're saying here is that as long as you have a 3G or Edge signal, the iphone will not look for a wifi signal. As soon as you lose 3G or Edge, the iphone will look for an available wifi signal. Is that accurate? In other words, the iphone looks for 3G, Edge, and wifi in that order?
Click to expand...

If wi-fi is on it looks for that first when you use safari, or check mail or whatever you use that uses data. Then if that isn't available it goes to the second option 3G, then if it can't find that it'll drop down to Edge. If your just walking around with the phone in your pocket it's not looking for a wi-fi signal, unless it needs to use it. I.E. to check your mail.
 
Apple Ink said:
I use WiFi! And yes I leave both my router and my iPhone's wifi on all the time!
Why- Speed!
And battery isnt really that important a factor at home since in the end you're always near a power source!
Click to expand...
since Im paying $30 for 6GB, I can help but use the the 3G at all times :( Im almost at 30 days and I havent even gone over 300MB :p and I try to abuse this a lot!!
 
mBox said:
since Im paying $30 for 6GB, I can help but use the the 3G at all times :( Im almost at 30 days and I havent even gone over 300MB :p and I try to abuse this a lot!!
Click to expand...

Same here, I assume you're with Rogers?

With 6 gigs of data I try to abuse 3G likes its going out of style, only managed to hit like 200 megs the first few weeks though, lol, not even a dent!!!

Although now that tethering is possible with NetShare, I'm going to be getting my money's worth. ;)
 
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