There are a few reasons to limit your 3G cellular usage, like saving battery power, but one of the more common reasons is to avoid going over your monthly data limit. We are going to show you how to do that in several different ways, in today's iOS Academy.
iCloud
Since Apple has launched iCloud along with iOS 5, these have had an increased role in using your data. Thanks to iCloud you can now push quite a few things to the cloud to make sure they are accessible on all of your devices. This does, however, use quite a bit of your 3G data allowance. To pick and choose what gets pushed just go to the Settings app, tap iCloud, then choose what you do and do not want constantly pushed up to the cloud.
iTunes
Another way you can use up your 3G data allowance is via the App Store. New music, app, and book purchases can be downloaded to each device automatically after they are purchased. Apple's iTunes won't download anything over 20MB using your 3G service, but depending on your plan, downloading smaller apps can still use a lot your monthly allowance. Those three categories of downloads often have large file sizes due to content and/or sound quality and can really use a lot of data while doing so. To turn this off, once again go to the Settings app, tap Store, then switch the category of downloads you want to turn off.
Email
Email can be quite the data hog with all the attachments and full HTML newsletters. Most of us have the app check for mail every 15-60 minutes, or have it pushed to our devices as it arrives. You can use up a lot of data that way, here's how to take care of that. You'll want to enter the Setting app, tap Mail Contacts Calendars, then Fetch New Data, flip the switch for Push to off, and tap Manually under the Fetch category. To receive your email on your terms, just open the Mail app and it will receive and send data only when opened.
The Nuclear Solution
Now, I'll show you how to take care of this with a very broad stroke. Go to the Settings app, tap General, then Network and switch Cellular Data to off. It is that simple, however, you are completely turning off all 3G connections and relying only on Wi-Fi to send and receive data. Keep in mind that when you use this method you lose your visual voice mail capability. To access it you have to turn it back on when you see a blank badge appear on your phone icon, or you can call in to retrieve your voice messages.
There you have it, several ways to reduce your 3G data usage. As always you can get in
touch with me via Twitter if you have any feedback or questions.
