Friday, June 4, 2010

Help me with a quick iPhone usage survey... and win!

This is a pretty crappy topic to make my first post in a long time, but I have to do this now. As you have probably heard, AT&T is changing their data plan for new smartphone customers.

The current plan is $30/month for "unlimited data", which is their way of saying 5GB max.

Now, as of June 7, 2010, new customers are subject to a tiered system, with the following:
- $15/month for 200MB
- $25/month for 2GB.

Now, you may have your strong feelings about this shift, and I have my opinions as well, but that is not the purpose of this post. I'm inviting you to help me in my quest to figure out how the new data plan will affect me, a prospective iPhone buyer/AT&T customer. Will I consistently go over the 2GB limit and have to pay their $10/GB overage fee?

If you'd like to participate, please answer the following two questions:

1) what kind of user do you consider yourself? Do you listen to a lot of streaming music or videos (Youtube, etc) on your iPhone? Are you always surfing the web/using apps, or are you a light user who goes on it once a day?

2) How much data do you use? This can be found by following the instructions in this Macrumors post. I would like to know at least how many MB or GB you used last month, though info on your usage for the last few months would be even better.

Notes:
- Please post your answers in the comments section below. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, you can send your response to omnigeno @ gmail.com (remove the spaces).
- I don't need to know how many SMS messages (texts) you've sent/received or how many minutes you've used for phone calls. Just data, please.
- Anyone who replies to both questions satisfactorily will be entered to win a $25 iTunes gift card code from me as a token of gratitude.

Thank you so much!

6 comments:

  1. 1. Pretty casually consistent iPhone user. Don't do too much streaming, but I do use the browser quite a bit (with the occasional youtube clip thrown in)

    2. I averaged around 132.75MB/mo for the last 8 months. My max was 186MB, and min was 68MB. Mind you, I rarely connect to a wifi hotspot at all - usually stick with 3G.

    For me, the $15/200MB plan is perfect. My coworker (Jay) is a pretty heavy user, streaming lots of videos and whatnot, and he only hit 2GB after four months of usage. I've only used 1.5GB after 11 months.

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  2. 1. Heavy iphone user. I use a lot of apps and am always listening to something/surfing the net/sending email. I also use youtube often.

    2. see below usage
    Jan 10 - 236 Mbytes
    Feb 10 - 182
    Mar 10 - 163
    Apr 10 - 381 (what the heck did i DL this month?)
    May 10 - 133
    June 10 - 216

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  3. To be honest, while I dont like being limited in my usage, I'd say that the majority of ppl will not be using the phone to the 5gb capacity regularly... unless I interpreted the post incorrectly... I would think someone like you, bryan, would do a lot of DL while connected to wireless networks.

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  4. 1. I am a heavy user of the iphone. I listen to pandora radio at work (for hrs at a time), play words with friends, and send lots of pictures via email. Pls message me if you have any questions.

    2. I just checked my phone bill and I average 500MB of usage a month.

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  5. 521, 637, 310, 486, 539 (per month mbytes starting with jan 10)

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  6. Hey B

    1. I use my iPhone for med applications, Wiki searching, as well as email many many times a day, but since I'm not downloading huge files or on Youtube much, my use is comparatively light (given the heavy hitters on this page, especially since lately most of the time I have wireless access.

    2. According to our family plan (I asked the parental to check) my month usage trends in the 52k to 55k range. Yup. Pathetic. But it kinda makes me grin. It makes a lot of sense, since most of the places I hang out are wireless enabled.

    Good luck deciding!

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