All Articles Tagged pdanet

PdaNet has been hailed as the best reason to Jailbreak your iPhone. Why? Because it sets your iPhone up as a WiFi router that you can easily connect to with your laptop. This setup is ideal for a lot of users for a few reason:

1. It’s dead-simple to set up, as it doesn’t require any weird software or modem configuration on your laptop
2. Since the iPhone becomes a simple WiFi router, there are no blocked ports. Unlike NetShare, PdaNet is not a ‘SOCKS proxy,’ so you can use any internet protocol (like iChat or AIM) and not have to worry about whether or not it will work.
3. Although you’d take a big old hit on speed, you could theoretically share your internet connection with several computers.

There is one major caveat you need to be aware of with PdaNet, however. The Terms of Service on the standard AT&T iPhone contract and also on their standard Data Plans do not allow you to tether. Most people simply ignore this and go ahead and tether anyway — being careful not to overdo it to prevent AT&T from hitting them with extra fees or even a cancellation. If that doesn’t worry you, read on for a full how to on getting PdaNet setup to tether to your Laptop!

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I’ve gone ahead and followed Jeremy’s excellent iPhone Jailbreak instructions for one specific reason: the ability to install PdaNet on my iPhone for tethering. PdaNet let us know, along with reader Lawton, that they’ve given up waiting for App Store approval (which will likely never come anyway) and have gone ahead and released their application for jailbroken iPhones. You can get the full skinny here.

PdaNet for the iPhone is heads and shoulders above their other offerings in that it doesn’t require any software on your laptop. You simply need to set up an ‘ad hoc’ WiFi network (here’s how) on your laptop and then have your iPhone join that network. Then, boom, you’re online.

PdaNet will also work in the background (yet another reason to Jailbreak — real background apps), although they caution that you’ll want to make sure that you get back into the app relatively quickly so it doesn’t idle. They’ve also implemented another neat accelerometer-based feature: set your phone face-down and it will turn off the screen, saving power. Truth-be-told, though, you should probably leave it plugged in, an active 3G connection and WiFi connection isn’t going to be very good to your battery.

One last note: over-usage of PdaNet’s tethering is likely to draw the eye and the ire of AT&T, so use with care!

Thanks to Lawton for the tip!

Null River sends word that Apple has officially responded to them (at long last) and the response is sadly what we expected:

Looks like Apple has decided they will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore. As such, NetShare will not be available in the iTunes AppStore. We are seeing a lot of similar reports from various developers who’s applications were abruptly removed and banned from the AppStore without any violations of the terms of service. This is all unfortunate news for the iPhone platform end-users.

Of course, this also bodes ill for PdaNet and any other folks looking to create tethering apps. Just ain’t gonna happen, folks.

The App Store cancellation / banning / NDA / mystery is starting to approach critical mass. Dave Winer nails the real issue here: there’s no way to app developers to find out whether or not they’re going to even be allowed to sell their app via the App Store until after they’ve put all the work into creating it. Developers are all sitting “Before the Law,” hoping the gatekeeper will suddenly become reasonable and rational. For tethering apps, at least, that hope is in vain. We’re still holding out hope for Podcaster and, well, for a lot of others.

(Netshare and Winer links via Daring Fireball)

Seems like it’s been an eternity since the pulling of the NetShare application officially brought us into the age of Apple pulling apps from the App Store on an almost daily basis. Without NetShare, the only folks who have been able to utilize their iPhones’ 3G connection for Laptop connectivity have been the crazy ones.

For the rest of us, there’s just the teeniest, tiniest glimmer of hope, that AT&T will relent and allow official tethering.

Until then it’s a waiting game. While you wait, think a bit about folks on PalmOS and Windows Mobile, folks who can not only tether, but can tether in a special ‘proxy mode’ that’s actually quite clever. See, when you tether, your carrier can tell you’re tethering (and can therefore charge you more). What lucky users on these other platforms do is trick their networks into thinking they’re just browsing via their phone. They do this via an awesome piece of software called PdaNet.

So: PdaNet for iPhone? It’s still the waiting game:

Our latest response from Apple is that the PdaNet application will be given new “consideration”. But that was more than a week ago and it still has an “In Review” status. There is not much we can do at this point but just to wait.

Sadly, that response from June Fabrics is now three weeks old and still no sign of PdaNet in the App Store, so things don’t look so good.

Come on, Apple and AT&T, allowing us to tether our laptops to our iPhones would make an awesome “One More Thing.”