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Apple Approves Tethering App For the iPhone
- sudonim 15y agoSite seems to be having issues. The video suggests you have software on your computer and your phone, and that handles tethering circumventing the software built in to iOS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pCocSOgfPxI http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p... Also, it seems they've targeted it at very non-technical users.
- edandersen 15y agoThere is no way Apple will keep this up if it snuck through review.
- matthew-wegner 15y agoMore information here, since the site is down: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/29/itether-app-offers-internet-tethering-on-your-iphone-for-one-time-fee/ http://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/29/itether-app-offers-inter...
- ben1040 15y agoApp store link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itether/id477971193?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itether/id477971193?mt=8
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- cstejerean 15y agoI think Google gets away in part because the telcos are afraid of Apple. Similarly with how Amazon got DRM-free content at a lower price because the labels wanted to create some competition to iTunes.
- m_eiman 15y agoExcept iOS has tethering, it's just disabled on AT&T. Says more about the US mobile market than it does about iOS.
- evan_ 15y agoit's not even disabled on AT&T, you just have to pay extra for it.
- nknight 15y agoActually, even that isn't entirely accurate anymore. Apparently tethering is included in the new 4GB data plan (which is $45, to the 2GB plan's $25).
- lloeki 15y agoIn the meantime in France we're still getting raped: tethering on Orange is 8€ for 200MB/month or 25€ for 1GB/month, and that's atop a 45€/month 2h voice+1GB data (phone-only) plan.
- cubicle67 15y agoexactly. I've got an ancient (2nd gen) iPhone on which I spend about $30 prepaid and it's been tethering fine for years. I know, because I use the tethering regularly
- bigiain 15y agoCurious, I often bring an iPhone to the USA and put a prepaid SIM in it when I get there, last few times I got an AT&T SIM, the tethering option vanished from my preferences. With a TMobile SIM, I can tether, but only at EDGE data rates, not 3G. (Last trip, I use AT&T in the iPad and tMobile in the phone, seemed to be my most cost effective set of options)
- robterrell 15y agoTMobile uses different frequencies, which is why you'll only get EDGE data rates with that TMobile SIM.
- 37prime 15y agoLet's see. Android phones with unrestricted Tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot are Nexus One, Nexus S and presumably Galaxy Nexus. Tethering on any Droid phones are encumbered by Verizon. You have to pay the tethering plan to have this feature enabled. The same goes AT&T Android phones with "crippled" tethering capabilities. iPhone supported carrier-sanctioned tethering pre-iOS 4 (iOS 3.x in 2010), just not in the US with AT&T. Different carriers handle it differently.
- bentlegen 15y agoAndroid phones on T-Mobile have tethering enabled. At least my still-locked HTC G2 does. As far as I know, I'm not paying extra for it.
- 37prime 15y agoThat's because T-Mobile allows it. I mentioned specifically Verizon and AT&T for locking the features. I'm not sure how Sprint deals with the whole tethering. As far as we know T-Mobile is a lot more "customer friendly" since they're running 4th out of the big 4 Wireless provider in the US.
- fpgeek 15y agoDoesn't side-loading tethering apps work on Verizon (and newer AT&T phones)? Of course, they can still get you via traffic analysis and other tricks, but that is a different sort of issue.
- jen_h 15y agoAzilink is awesome on Android: https://code.google.com/p/azilink/ https://code.google.com/p/azilink/ Have never had an issue with it.
- bgramer 15y agoI just tried the iPhone app with my Macbook Pro and can verify it works. You have to keep the iPhone app front and center, not in the background in order for it to work. It still works when the iPhone is in sleep mode. Now going to check if it will work with my iPad3G connected to my Macbook Pro. Hope this info helps confirm/answer questions out there.
- bgramer 15y agoConfirmed. This works using my iPad 3G connected to my Macbook Pro. Now turning on Internet sharing from Ethernet to Wifi to see if I can have my Mac act as a Wifi hotspot using the iPhone tether.
- pheelicks 15y agoThis will be banned soon. For those of you who don't want to drop $15, there's an open-source tethering app available: https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy/wiki/ https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy/wiki/ Note you will need to have an Apple developer account to be able to build and install this on a real device
- larrik 15y agoI couldn't get iProxy working right under iOS 5, and I couldn't find anyone else even trying. Worked great for me last year on iOS 4, though. I only need tethering once a year. This iTether app would have been handy last week.
- siglesias 15y ago"We were very clear with Apple what our app did. They asked us a bunch of questions and then approved us." https://twitter.com/tethercom/status/141415159376781312 https://twitter.com/tethercom/status/141415159376781312
- lukifer 15y agoThere's no question that this will be pulled soon. The question is: will Apple also disable the app remotely for all those who purchased it, something that is possible, but (I believe) unprecedented.
- arn 15y agofwiw, Tether (the company) claims Apple was aware of what the app did: http://twitter.com/#!/Tethercom/status/141415159376781312 http://twitter.com/#!/Tethercom/status/141415159376781312
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- masklinn 15y ago> The question is: will Apple also disable the app remotely for all those who purchased it, something that is possible, but (I believe) unprecedented. They did not do it for the previous iteration of the concept (Netshare, those who kept it can still use it, although I'm not sure it still works on recent iOS versions). It's very unlikely they'd do it this time either, remote kill is for actively dangerous/harmful applications and they'd get a complete shitstorm using their killswitch for this.
- ugh 15y agoThat seems unlikely. I think there already was a tethering app which Apple pulled from the Store but didn’t pull from devices. I do think that Apple is serious when they say that their ability to remotely pull apps is reserved for malware. The much more elegant solution for Apple is to make this app silently stop working with the next OS update.
- timerickson 15y agoThis is correct. The app was NetShare, and it still resides on my phone.
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- ricksta 15y agoAll the iPhones here in Canada has tethering enabled. Under settings you can turn on personal hotspot.
- gcb 15y agohere in the US people still buy it... and mind you the white one, because everyone have the black iphone. The operators would be suckers if they give that for free instead of $30/mo i'm happy with my nexus. don't even have to open the settings, i have a widget that turns on and off right on the home screen.
- sleepyhead 15y ago"The operators would be suckers if they give that for free instead of $30/mo" So telcos outside the US are suckers? I'm from Norway and Telenor has tethering enabled and they are one of the biggest telcos in the world.
- gcb 15y agoIf you take into account they could be making 30/mo for each use FOR FREE I'd say they are :) Or, what is muchmore likely, as corporates don't pass on free money ever, their market is not and so theycan't make free money like in the usa.
- sleepyhead 15y agoWell thankfully we have a more competitive marked in Europe then. Data is already included in the plans so charging for tethering which just uses data is absurd. So it is not telcos outside the US that are suckers. It is consumers in the US who are.
- stephen_g 15y agoAll the carriers in Australia offer free tethering and wifi hotspot as well.
- blub 15y agoThis is one of the reasons I decided against the iPhone after using it for a week - it leaves a setting that should be under the control of users to the carriers. Saying that your carrier allows it for free is missing the point...
- danssig 15y agoThis isn't an iPhone issue, it's a US carrier issue. Americans need to be asking ourselves why we let ourselves get pushed around so much more than other first world countries on these kinds of things.
- nicksergeant 15y agoWhat exactly should the American consumer do in protest? Not buy smartphones until carriers are nicer?
- danssig 15y agoWe need better, more efficient regulation. Basically, we need to get back in control of the government. Big business owns it right now so life is getting better and better for them at our expense.
- nicksergeant 15y agoIt does feel a bit like a runaway train, but I'm not sure it's the government's place to police the carriers on features and price (my biggest issues with them). What we really need is one solid competitor who aims to do things differently. We need an Apple / Google in the carrier world.
- andylei 15y ago> I'm not sure it's the government's place to police the carriers > We need an Apple / Google in the carrier world if the government does not have the solution, and a major competitor to the big 4 (perhaps soon to be 3) carriers has not begun emerging, what do you think we should do? continue to wait for such a competitor to emerge? do you think one ever will?
- URSpider94 15y agoI can confirm that it works, however, you do need to keep the app front-and-center to keep the connection alive. Also, it only works over USB, not WiFi or BT, and you need to have the custom Tether app installed on your PC. Looks like it's creating an Ethernet-over-USB interface to the phone, then I can't tell if the app is contacting network servers directly, or if it's proxying it all back to Tether.com's servers (traceroute didn't want to run for me). Interestingly, if I have WiFi active on the iPhone, it routes the connection over the WiFi network, which could be really nice in certain circumstances (you pay for a WiFi roaming plan on your phone, but don't have access to it on your PC). Speedtest was showing 2.3 Mbps down, 0.9 up over 3G. Not too shabby. I only plan to use this occasionally, to check emails from the road; I hope AT&T doesn't try to yank my unlimited data plan... [I'm posting this comment over the Tether link now]
- nivertech 15y agowill it work on iPad?
- brainfed 15y agoI was going to ask what the point of this was, because I can just do it already on my iPhone. But from the comments I guess they charge you extra for it in the US? That sucks.
- jsight 15y agoI'm curious how much data you get, and for how much money?
- brainfed 15y agoMe? I get 5GB of data on my plan which costs $89 AU a month. That includes unlimited phone calls, SMS, voicemail etc The only thing with a cap of any kind on it is the data, and I never use even close to 5GB, even with my iPad and MacBook tethering occasionally.
- jsight 15y agoFor comparison, here are some US rates: T-Mobile: Unlimited txt/voice, 5GB data == $89.99 USD (2GB is 10 less, there is no cost overage after the cap, but the speed drops to less than 2G) Sprint: Unlimited txt/voice/data == $110 ATT: Unlimited txt/voice, 4GB == $115, 2GB == $95
- kayoone 15y agoI was wondering what this is about since iOS has the personal hotspot feature for a while which turns your iphone into a WiFi Router and works flawlessly. Seems like US users dont have this ? Thats really bad.
- mwexler 15y agoUS users do have it, but it's an additional fee on top of the regular metered data plan on most US carriers. For example, AT&T charges $20 additional per month to activate it, and adds 2 gb to the monthly allocation as part of the plan. So, more bandwidth if you tend to use a lot on your phone, but for just occasional use, it's an expensive option.
- andylei 15y agoi've heard that (on AT&T) you can get that activated for a couple days at a time (say, when you're traveling), and they'll prorate the fee.
- reaganing 15y agoWe do, but the carriers will want $20-25/month from you if you try to enable the feature. It's rather lame, wanting to charge you again to use data you're already paying form especially in this era of data plans being capped anyway, This nonsense is easy enough to get around with on Android (many third-party ROMs have Android's built-in tethering feature enabled) or BlackBerry (this Tether company makes a BlackBerry app that worked well for me in the past.)
- iwwr 15y agoOther than the US, are there any other places in the world where "tethering" even exists as a concept?
- datadon 15y agoSeems to have been pulled from the UK app store. It was there this morning but no longer. Hopefully a glitch rather than full exclusion, but my gut tells me I should have bought it this morning.
- bkaid 15y agoAnd its already gone. Nobody saw that coming.
- Fluxx 15y agoI managed to buy the iPhone app last night, but now it looks like it got yanked from the app store - at least in the US? Edit. Looks like they did. Glad I got it when I did last night: http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/11/29/apple-pulls-itether-from-app-store/ http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/11/29/apple-pulls-itether-fr...