Sudden unexpected data usage (“Apple Maps”)

[Doric]

My wife received a text from EE yesterday that she’d reached her (10Gb) monthly data allowance which was surprising since she never usually uses more than a fraction.

The EE Customer Service rep confirmed that she’d used 9.8Gb yesterday. After further questioning, the EE REP provided the graph below. Although the graph covers the billing period (2 weeks) the consumption by Apple Maps (9.7Gb) was all during yesterday. 


But my wife has never used Apple Maps and, in any case, that application doesn’t use data so fast.   It’s apparently around 10Mb per hour. Somehow I don’t think Apple Maps is the true culprit. 
I looked carefully on my wife’s phone, under Settings - see screenshots below. Unfortunately the ‘Current Period’ hadn’t been reset since 2019, so not helpful. These screenshots all refer to total data usage since then. But Apple Maps was not in the top 20 apps for data usage (since my wife hadn’t ever used it). When we look at how much space Maps is using, it’s nominal.

Which leads me to think that the graph provided by the EE rep (showing Maps used 9.7Gb yesterday) is somehow incorrect.  That’s an immense amount of data for (less than) one day when my wife made a WhatsApp audio call (20 minutes) and sent a few emails. 

So I’m thinking that either the measured data consumption is incorrect, or it’s not Apple Maps, or both. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what might have caused this unexpected surprise?

[Chris_B]

@Doric  your second image only shows the app size i.e. how much storage it’s taking up on the device and what data is being stored for that app.  It’s not data usage.     

The mapping service isn’t just for Apple Maps it’s for all sorts of location data  please read THIS   it might just report back to EE as Apple Maps as it’s a mapping service and that’s how EE receives this information.   It can be any app that uses GPS  as this is a mapping service.  

What does clicking SHOW ALL show ?  

 you have location data enabled on photos by default so that’s using mapping services.  

If your wife doesn’t use app maps it can delete it.   

[Doric]

Hi @Chris_B  thanks for your reply.  When I clicked ‘Show All’, Apple Maps was way down the list. But as mentioned the list hadn’t been refreshed since 2019 (I’ve now reset it). I’ve yet to see a plausible explanation for the phone sucking through 9.7Gb of data in less than one day. 

[Chris_B]

@Doric  Happy New Year.    I’m confused as to why EE are reporting this amount of data as Apple Maps when used will consume roughly 1Gb of data for around 14 hours of usage.   

Is background app refresh enabled for Apple Maps ?  To check this open settings>apps>maps  it doesn’t need to enable especially if Apple Maps isn’t used.   I have disabled and I use Apple Maps a lot.  

[Doric]

Hi @Chris_B. Yes, turning off Background App Refresh for Maps was the first thing I did when the issue occurred (and I won’t hesitate to delete the Maps app itself if it remains the prime suspect). But as you say, it doesn’t seem natural that it could be responsible for consuming 9.7GB of mobile data in less than one day, especially when not being used. 

The mystery continues.  I guess the only way to proactively troubleshoot is to buy more mobile data and monitor carefully. 

[Dode_]

Why not delete Apple Maps and all data and monitor it from there for a few days or so. Then you can re-install it from the App store and see what happens. Also worth powering down the phone a leave it for at least 5 mins.

[Doric]

I’ve actioned both these suggestions but I still feel burnt by this experience (and extending my wife’s mobile data allowance to get her to the end of the current billing period would cost more than the whole month does normally).  So if anyone has an explanation for why this huge data consumption occurred, out of the blue, I’d still be very interested. 

[BadgerH]

A third of your data usage seems to shown as being through the Hotspot - so maybe whoever is accessing your hotspot has been downloading the Apple Maps data?