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!
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.”
The trouble with Steve Jobs (or an anonymous iMinion thereof) sometimes mailing off blunt-force rejoinders to disgruntled Apple customers? The intertubes suddenly become awash in Jobsmail, making it impossible to sort the real from the decidedly not so. Case in point: a Gizmodo reader claims to have emailed Jobs about the possibility of maybe potentially one day considering tethering (allowing your computer to connect to the ‘net via your iPhone’s 3G or EDGE connection). The alleged response:
We agree, and are discussing it with ATT.
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Yeah, we can has big old doubts as well…
Update: Macrumors lets us know that, strangely enough, it’s back in the App Store. It doesn’t show up in a search, but you can download it via this iTunes/App Store link.
Update 2: …aaaand it’s gone again, at least in the US. Le Sigh.
The Interweb is abuzz about this little program that popped up on the App Store yesterday, so aptly named NetShare. The concept of the app is to essentially use your iPhone’s 3G or EDGE (god knows why) connection for your laptop. It creates a proxy and establishes a pseudo-hotspot with your iPhone’s connection leaving you free to surf the web on your laptop. It’s tethering, more or less.
How this got passed Apple and AT&T who knows. But it looks like has already been kicked out of the App Store. Did any of the TiPb faithful get their hands on this app while it was hot? Anyone get it to work? From what TiPb has been hearing, it’s really hit or miss. Let us know.
Maybe Apple wanted the developers of NetShare to get the app right before they put it out again…wish for it and it’ll come true…wish for it and it’ll come true.
Read
Depending on your carrier, their terms of service (TOS), and your willingness to break said terms and face possible consequences including death-by-over-billing, you can now tether you newly pwned/jailbroken iPhone 3G to your laptop to share the mobile 3G internet connection anywhere and everywhere you go (your coverage area, of course, may vary).
The process is a little involved, according to Macrumors (via Cre.ations.net):
Jailbreak your iPhone 3G. Install 3Proxy and Terminal. Create an ad-hoc Wi-fi network using your laptop. Join the network with your iPhone. Find the iPhone’s IP address
Open Terminal and run the proxy program. Open Safari on your iPhone and open a web page. Configure your browser to use the proxy.
Not a 133t level hax0r? Don’t worry. AT&T (and other carriers) might just offer this option, complete with inevitable bandwidth cap, ‘natch, sometime in the next millennium…
Boo! One of the most popular things to do with a 3G smartphone is to “tether” it, which is to attach it to your laptop and use it as a modem so you can get online anywhere your phone has service. Windows Mobile and Treos have multiple options for doing this — some even via some sneaky software that works in a kind of “proxy mode” so you can avoid paying the extra costs associated with a full-on “Phone as Modem” plan (which usually runs in the neighborhood of $50 a month). Sadly, AT&T has let the official word out — you won’t be able to do this with the iPhone 3G:
However according to AT&T spokesman, Mark A. Siegel, who spoke with iPhone Atlas earlier this week, AT&T will not be supporting a PAM plan for the iPhone 3G. The only available data plan for the iPhone will be the new $30 consumer unlimited data and visual voice mail plan and the $45 business data plan. The latter is charged when a person makes an enterprise type connection to Exchange or a Blackberry server for email or messaging. — [iPhone Atlas]
Of course, this has already been done for Jailbroken phones and we hope it will be done again — just don’t expect to be able to purchase something like this from the App Store when it rolls out.
