1. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    As some of you know I went back to my 9900 because of email issue and big data usage so my Z10 is now free for some testing.

    I did a wipe, I went trough the set up, connected to my home wifi and downloaded the data monitoring app. I kep an eye on the data and no data was being used on standby at this point.

    I than opened the BB Maps app, I waited until it loaded my location and it used 2mb. All good so far.

    I let the maps app run as an active frame and went back to the data monitoring app. This is where it starts to go wrong.

    With the maps app as an active frame data is being used constantly, in the space of 5 minutes it used another 4mb now and it keeps using data, this is without even touching the app. It's constant, I refresh the data app and more data is being used every time.

    While I wrote this yet another mb was used.

    Data culprit number one found I think. I'll leave it on as it is for another few minutes.
    Mecca EL likes this.
    04-11-13 08:38 AM
  2. peter9477's Avatar
    Is this when you're travelling, or even when the device is just sitting still?
    04-11-13 08:44 AM
  3. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    Is this when you're travelling, or even when the device is just sitting still?
    Sitting still, the device is on wifi only. I have to leave it there now, got a few jobs. Looks like it slowed down now but still using little bits every minute or so. I'll report back later.
    04-11-13 08:48 AM
  4. chrispipe's Avatar
    it's probably updating traffic conditions. who just leaves maps running when they aren't using it anyways? i would not consider this to be a "data hog" application. it uses appropriate amounts of data for the jobs the app does. just turn it off when you're done and it doesn't consume data. some people are experiencing data drain WITH NO apps open. so a process or something is eating data and hiding. if you find one of those, the peasants will rejoice.
    04-11-13 08:54 AM
  5. der_mit's Avatar
    Makes sense. I always knew maps uses heaps of data, even from my old BlackBerry Pearl days, now with this thing always monitoring your location with maps being open just tells me to only use it when necessary .
    Thanks for the info BD.

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 09:12 AM
  6. El Platanero's Avatar
    Is this even when you didn't even select a location?

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 09:17 AM
  7. EauRouge's Avatar
    Interesting. Thanks for the tip

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 09:19 AM
  8. IanArg's Avatar
    I tested today on a journey with traffic enabled and it uses around 25Mb per hour whilst travelling and active. Seems very excessive for me. I then connected my tomtom iphone via internet sharing which has traffic enabled but offline maps and the data consumed for tomtom was about 250Kb in an hour!
    04-11-13 09:20 AM
  9. wasabiGT's Avatar
    I do ask though same as the person above...

    who keeps maps an active frame? i would assume that it would be a data hog on any phone. especially if it has turn by turn nav and traffic updates.

    the only active frame on my Z10 is the music player.
    04-11-13 09:21 AM
  10. duckduke's Avatar
    It's in the "Active Frame" ....... therefore it is active.

    I know ..... if you are sitting in one spot and have it minimized in the active frame you would not expect it to use much but it will be monitoring your location (in case you walk to the kitchen or go to the back yard ). Wouldn't want to miss that..... you could get lost or something.

    Anything you leave in the active frame is going to run. If it pulls data ....... it willl still be pulling data. Turn on Pandora / the Apollo app or 1 of the many radio streaming apps and leave it in the active frame and check your data monitor. I bet it beats maps.

    I have been fighting a similar issue with my wife's Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket. It used almost 300Meg yesterday and was barely picked up. The 3Gig data plan is at 3.5Gig with 15 days left in the plan month. I have an app monitor and data monitor running on it etc. etc. doing the same same thing you are doing. Seems that "unopen" apps like email are runing in the background (the apps are not open) and chewing up tons of data simply "syncing" and attempting updates. "Email" is eating 90-95% of the data usage..... go figure. I've turned off the "background" running and "auto sync" and think I have it under control.

    I hope you find your problem ...... I would check your "sync" and "update" setting on some apps.

    Hope this helps!!!!
    04-11-13 09:32 AM
  11. calicocat2010's Avatar
    I had to keep my Google maps or blackberry maps as an active frame because I didn't know where premier drive was here in Irving since I don't live in Irving. I was trying to figure out where south 161 was from my work and I had to keep it as an active frame.

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 09:32 AM
  12. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    I do ask though same as the person above...

    who keeps maps an active frame? i would assume that it would be a data hog on any phone. especially if it has turn by turn nav and traffic updates.

    the only active frame on my Z10 is the music player.
    Ok, maybe many people are not aware of this but legacy BB cached all maps viewed so you could travel to your destination without any signal needed (assuming you didn't take a wrong turn) or say if you traveled to a city abroad, you could view the maps of that city before you left and once you got there your location on the maps would still be shown without an internet connection. So many legacy owners just leave the maps open while driving without any data use at all except for the very first time. I like to keep it on to show me the speed on my 9900
    Mecca EL likes this.
    04-11-13 09:47 AM
  13. thatplaybookguy's Avatar
    I tested today on a journey with traffic enabled and it uses around 25Mb per hour whilst travelling and active. Seems very excessive for me. I then connected my tomtom iphone via internet sharing which has traffic enabled but offline maps and the data consumed for tomtom was about 250Kb in an hour!
    Key words there are OFFLINE MAPS. Of course it would use less data if it isn't pulling the maps in LIVE.
    04-11-13 10:22 AM
  14. nomi1978's Avatar
    I did a comparison between Waze and the BB maps application. I used Waze for an hour and it used 4-5 megs of data. And then today I used BB Maps and it used 18 mb of data for the exact same drive. Not to mention the traffic was more reliable and upto date on the waze app.
    04-11-13 10:26 AM
  15. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    Key words there are OFFLINE MAPS. Of course it would use less data if it isn't pulling the maps in LIVE.
    Legacy BB Maps also became off line maps after one oppening but at a very little data use. After a week of use mine used just 2mb.
    Attached Thumbnails Z10 big data usage - found one culprit-edshot-20-thu-20apr-2011-202013-204.28.54-20pm-.jpg  
    Mecca EL likes this.
    04-11-13 10:30 AM
  16. John Pawling's Avatar
    As some of you know I went back to my 9900 because of email issue and big data usage so my Z10 is now free for some testing.

    I did a wipe, I went trough the set up, connected to my home wifi and downloaded the data monitoring app. I kep an eye on the data and no data was being used on standby at this point.

    I than opened the BB Maps app, I waited until it loaded my location and it used 2mb. All good so far.

    I let the maps app run as an active frame and went back to the data monitoring app. This is where it starts to go wrong.

    With the maps app as an active frame data is being used constantly, in the space of 5 minutes it used another 4mb now and it keeps using data, this is without even touching the app. It's constant, I refresh the data app and more data is being used every time.

    While I wrote this yet another mb was used.

    Data culprit number one found I think. I'll leave it on as it is for another few minutes.
    Thanks for taking the time to post this. Do you think the data usage increase is a result of location services (improving GPS positioning using network services) ?


    Z10 big data usage - found one culprit-img_00000098.png

    Posted Via CB10 on my Zed10
    04-11-13 10:32 AM
  17. NickA's Avatar
    it's probably updating traffic conditions. who just leaves maps running when they aren't using it anyways?
    I do ask though same as the person above...
    who keeps maps an active frame?
    It doesn't matter, you can't ask these types of questions or assume users are going to do the "right" thing or not. If you've ever developed an application, you have to make is user-proof (I'm using a nicer term than developers usually do). You have to account for every situation that could happen. And those you can't account for, you need to code in safeguards.
    peter9477 likes this.
    04-11-13 10:32 AM
  18. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    Thanks for taking the time to post this. Do you think the data usage increase is a result of location services (improving GPS positioning using network services) ?


    Click image for larger version. 

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    Posted Via CB10 on my Zed10
    That's actually turned off while I did this test, I don't think traffic was enabled either, I'll check when I get back home.
    04-11-13 10:36 AM
  19. kill_9's Avatar
    Sounds as though BlackBerry Maps needs to cache previously viewed maps and only update the much smaller change in position. A live map feed for the entire area is asinine. Where did BlackBerry find these programmers? Fire the lot. [ Mr. Burns twiddles his fingers in glee. ]

    Posted via CB10 from the BlackBerry Z10
    Mecca EL and jdhooghe like this.
    04-11-13 10:44 AM
  20. Mecca EL's Avatar
    Finally, some more useful Z10 info. I'm going to run a comparison between the Zed's navigation app, and OS7's Navigator, to see which pulls more data. Good stuff here.

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 10:45 AM
  21. belfastdispatcher's Avatar
    Sounds as though BlackBerry Maps needs to cache previously viewed maps and only update the much smaller change in position. A live map feed for the entire area is asinine. Where did BlackBerry find these programmers? Fire the lot. [ Mr. Burns twiddles his fingers in glee. ]

    Posted via CB10 from the BlackBerry Z10
    Weather it caches maps or not, no maps are available off line on the Z10.

    PS, they did fire a lot of them lol, that's part of the problem.
    John Pawling likes this.
    04-11-13 10:50 AM
  22. John Pawling's Avatar
    PS, they did fire a lot of them lol, that's part of the problem.
    So very true, and if they needed to rehire those skills, they may have hired more junior programmers or outsourced (read: cheaper).

    I just hoped that BlackBerry kept their architecture team to ensure that requirements and specs were communicated correctly...sorry I have diverged from your original post.

    Let me know about your location settings as you've got my interest.

    Posted Via CB10 on my Zed10
    04-11-13 11:13 AM
  23. ubizmo's Avatar
    I did a comparison between Waze and the BB maps application. I used Waze for an hour and it used 4-5 megs of data. And then today I used BB Maps and it used 18 mb of data for the exact same drive. Not to mention the traffic was more reliable and upto date on the waze app.
    Interesting test, and very interesting result! I would have expected more data usage from Waze, especially since it pushes ads to the device.
    04-11-13 11:17 AM
  24. anon(1035135)'s Avatar
    Question to OP: Are repeated trips using BBMAPS just as data intensive as the original trip? I'm wondering if nothing is cached, perhaps that is why the original trip data is so high. But if data usage drops considerably after that point, perhaps it is just caching?

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 11:24 AM
  25. anon(1035135)'s Avatar
    It doesn't matter, you can't ask these types of questions or assume users are going to do the "right" thing or not. If you've ever developed an application, you have to make is user-proof (I'm using a nicer term than developers usually do). You have to account for every situation that could happen. And those you can't account for, you need to code in safeguards.
    Amen to that!

    Posted via CB10
    04-11-13 11:25 AM
31 12

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