Study: iPhone 4S Doubles Data Consumption Due to Siri

Network firm Arieso reports that Siri - the revolutionary assistant feature is resulting in iPhone 4S users using more than twice as much data compared to iPhone 4 and apparently putting greater pressure on carriers.

Arieso Chief Technology Officer Michael Flanagan had this to say in an interview with Bloomberg:

Voice is the ultimate human interface. As you lower the barriers,” consumers will use their smartphones’ functions even more often.

If you have bought Apple's new iPhone 4S then you probably know by now that Siri - iPhone 4S' intelligent personal assistant needs an active internet connection for it to work. That's because when you ask Siri to do something, the voice data is sent to Apple's data centers where your request is processed and the results are sent back to your iPhone 4S.

Initial study had revealed that Siri doesn't use too much data, but it looks like the data usage has doubled as iPhone 4S users are using the feature quite a bit.

Bloomberg reports:

Arieso’s research showed that a minority of users account for half of downloaded data. About one percent of the high-use subscribers downloaded half of the data volumes, according to the company. “The hungry are getting hungrier,” Flanagan said. 

Users of Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM)’s latest BlackBerry smartphones, the Curve and the Bold Touch, download about five times less data than iPhone 4S subscribers, according to Arieso. While RIM compresses data, the company’s traditional business users also use fewer applications beyond e-mail, Flanagan said.

The proliferation of voice command software may accelerate as more manufacturers adopt the technology, Flanagan said. “What makes Apple unique is that they have done it first successfully.” 

If you're actively using Siri on your iPhone 4S, it may be a good idea to keep an eye on the data usage

We hope  that Apple can also convince their carrier partners to increase the data usage limits for iPhone users so that users can use features like Siri more freely without worrying about exceeding their data usage limits. Unfortunately, the way carriers are treating their customers, it's probably wishful thinking.

Are you using twice as much data on your iPhone 4S? Let us know in the comments.

[source Bloomberg]