Is Siri a data hog? New study finds iPhone data usage soaring.
(Read article summary)iPhone 4S data rates are soaring, and Siri, the new voice-controlled personal assistant from Apple, could be responsible.
The iPhone 4S is burning through twice as much data as the iPhone 4, and almost three times as much data as the iPhone 3G, according to a new study from tech management firm Arieso. And in an highly-cited interview with Bloomberg, Michael Flanagan, the author of the study, is blaming much of the spike on Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant introduced on the iPhone 4S.
"Voice is the ultimate human interface," Flanagan told Bloomberg.
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According to Arieso, iPhone 4S users are the "hungriest" data consumers in the world – but users of other smartphones, including handsets driven by the Android OS, aren't far behind. All that data usage could be bad news for carriers and consumers, Arieso warns.
"The introduction of increasingly sophisticated devices, coupled with growing consumer demand, is creating unrelenting pressure on mobile networks. The capacity crunch is still a very real threat for mobile operators, and it looks set to only get harder in 2012," writes study author Michael Flanagan. "The mobile industry needs new investment and new approaches to boost network performance and manage the customer experience."
