[Edit: and at WWDC, Apple announced support for delta updates, which should mean I don’t have to download the entire OS image to upgrade my iDevices]
So far this year I’ve downloaded at least 18.8GB of Apple updates over my home internet connection. Consider I have three Mac OSX devices and four iOS devices. Here is how it breaks down…
OSX 10.6.6 update: 143MB
OSX 10.6.7 update: 475MB
iPhone/iPad 4.3.0: 670MB
iPhone/iPad 4.3.1: 666MB
iPhone/iPad 4.3.2: 662MB
iPhone/iPad 4.3.3: 600MB
Times all the devices I have, is 12.2GB worth of software updates in five months, or about 2.4GB per month. This doesn’t include the OSX software updates or iOS app updates. iPhoto 9 (which has been through at least one revision since I bought it in February through the app store) weighs in at about 900MB, so two downloads to three OSX boxes is another 5.4GB. iTunes is comparatively smaller, 75MB or so times four computers (3 Macs and a PC) times four updates so far this year is 1.2GB. Plus many other smaller updates – from app updates to printer driver updates, etc. So lets round it up to 20GB total in five months. Thats 4GB per month. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but its more than the monthly cap I have on my AT&T iPhone, and likely to squeeze out any chance I have using some alternate wireless ISP, leaving me with only DSL and Cable to choose from.