iPhone users who have upgraded to Apple's new iOS 6 software have been complaining that their mobile bills have rocketed after data usage has shot up – possibly due to a bug in how the OS switches between 3G and Wi-Fi connections. Some have used gigabytes of data in just a few days, after previously using only a small percentage of that amount when running iOS 5. Most service plans in the UK allow just 500MB of data monthly – putting those users affected by the bug far over their allocations.
Culprits for the bug may be Apple's iTunes Match service, which lets users download copies of their own music from the internet to a phone either via Wi-Fi or on 3G, and some of the other iCloud synchronisation services including the Safari browser, and iCloud documents and data.
Alexander Lain told the Guardian on Twitter his usage had gone from 500MB in a month to 2.7GB, but said he "thought it was because of changing to Orange". He has iTunes Match activated, but set only to download when the iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi.
However some users say they have found iTunes Match downloads continue if they have started in a Wi-Fi zone but then move away and get a mobile data connection. "Rolphus", a British software developer in Reading, is using an iPhone 4 updated to iOS 6 and had "use cellular [mobile] data" turned off for iTunes Match downloads – but still saw them carry on, which he said meant his data use had rocketed: having used about 140MB of data per month, he had used more than 300MB in less than that time.
Source: The Guardian
