Does Siri Take You Over Your Monthly Data Allowance?

One of the requirements of using Siri on the iPhone 4S is that you have some sort of a data connection. This could be either a wireless or 3G connection to the Internet. The reason for this is that everything you say is packaged up and sent to Apple so that it can process your voice and then tell the iPhone 4S how it needs to respond… this is of course a very simple way of explaining how Siri works.

As it requires your data plan in some instances, one thing you might want to watch out for is how much data each question takes. Thankfully, someone has done all the hard work and has managed to calculate an average of how much data per query.

In summary, Siri doesn’t use a lot of data although for heavy users (or those with a small data allowance) it could push you over the limit.

Ars Technica found that for light users, meaning those who use Siri 2 – 3 times per day, could expect to use 3.7 to 5.5MB of data in a month. For those using Siri about 4 to 6 times per day expect around 11MB of data. For heavy users, 10 – 15 times per day it could be almost 28MB.

For most people it might not be an issue, especially if a lot of those queries are done when connected to WiFi. If you are concerned though and perhaps only have a couple of hundred MB per month of data allowance then keep an eye on your data usage in the settings menu to make sure you are keeping within your plan.