If you’re still lucky enough to know what an unlimited data plan is, you’ll be one of the few who’ll be happy to know this will most likely not give you a head ache. A Norwegian newspaper just reported that there seems to be a bug on how the iPhone 4 calculates your data plan usage. The report mentions an iPhone 4 user complaining about his phone only reporting 12.8MB of usage, when his phone bill came up with a staggering 1.1GB of data consumption, which in the end adds up to around $750 that he’ll somehow have to pay whether he likes it or not.
Obviously Apple has nothing to do with a user’s usage patterns, but I know many of us rely on the built-in data usage counter to know more or less where we stand for the next bill. Apple most likely won’t want to comment or even help this guy pay the fee, but the least we’d expect is for the feature to work properly. Now an interesting note within the report is that the user claims to have used Wi-Fi for most of his hardcore data downloads. So, if the iPhone 4 did a good job in calculating the user’s carrier data usage, could it be that this is more of a Wi-Fi bug where the phone is not adequately switching between antennas to get you online? Sadly this dates to the user’s October data usage, so we can’t pin point it to the iOS 4.2.1 release, and the iPad Wi-Fi delays, but I guess we’ll never know until people begin to pay this month’s phone bill in December.
Our advice for now, is that if you have a way to monitor your usage online, do so before its too late. I can guarantee you that if something is wrong, the Cupertino gang won’t give you a refund.
