Data use DOUBLES as iPhone customers fall in love with Siri
Owners of the iPhone 4S are using almost twice as much data as users of the earlier iPhone 4, according to the network firm Arieso.
Siri is a big hit
One likely cause: the most talked-about feature of the 4S, the popular voice recognition software Siri .
“Voice is the ultimate human interface,” Arieso Chief Technology Officer Michael Flanagan said in an interview with Bloomberg News in London. “As you lower the barriers, consumers will use their smartphone functions even more often," he said.
Arieso, based in Atlanta, Georgia, advises clients on how to manage wireless networks .
Siri helps iPhone users schedule appointments, write text messages and check the local weather. The 4S is selling like hot cakes with long waiting lists. In the US Verizon has revealed that the number of iPhones it sold doubled to 4.2 million in the fourth quarter.
Flanagan said the iPhone 4S’ regular connections with Apple servers to synchronise applications including music lists may be contributing to the data load
Operators may vary their data tariffs to limit heavy use. Vodafone has shifted toward consumption-based billing to protect its network capacity, said Bloomberg .
Arieso’s research showed that about one percent of the high-use subscribers downloaded half the data. “The hungry are getting hungrier,” Flanagan said.
An average user of BlackBerry smartphones, the Curve and the Bold Touch, downloads about 20 percent of the data of an iPhone 4S subscriber, according to Arieso.