Siri, How Much Data Are You Using?

With unlimited data plans being phased out by all of the US carriers, the amount of data you utilize on your iPhone could result in an unwanted surcharge on your monthly wireless bill. Apple’s new personal assistant Siri regularly incurs data usage, but just how much? href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/how-data-heavy-is-siri-on-an-iphone-4s-ars-investigates.ars">ArsTechnica took a comprehensive look at what toll Siri takes on your monthly data usage.

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They performed 11 queries through Siri and watched data usage like a hawk. Their methodology included local tasks such as setting reminders and tasks that require connecting to the Internet. What’s interesting is the range in data usage for each query, ranging from 23KB to 187KB. They estimate that an average user that utilizes Siri for a similar amount of queries would use 20MB of data. There is a wide variance based upon the user and questions asked, so this number would likely change. Still, this is a great analysis by Ars and something to be aware when utilizing Siri.

If you are on a capped data plan, I can highly recommend grabbing the very excellent href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dataman-pro-real-time-data/id433617332?mt=8">DataMan Pro. It offers a wide array of data tracking and alerts. You can program four levels of usage thresholds and three data allowances suitable to your data plan.

With Siri still in beta, you have to wonder if improvements in the service will yield faster results and less of an impact on data usage.

Source: href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/11/how-data-heavy-is-siri-on-an-iphone-4s-ars-investigates.ars">ArsTechnica