Handylight Broken?

[barkomatic]

I don't know how many of you still have Handylight -- but it appears that it's no longer working for me. I've got an iPhone 5 on ios7 and a MacBook Pro with Mavericks so I'm not sure which update did it.

Has anyone else tested it recently that has a fully updated iPhone and Mac? I'm hoping that there might be some slight adjustment to the process I haven't thought of.

For those of you that don't know, Handylight was a flashlight app that had a hidden tethering capability in it which was briefly allowed to be sold on the AppStore before it was discovered. For those that got it before it was pulled, it allowed tethering on plans that don't allow it (like grandfathered AT&T unlimited data) without jailbreaking.

 

[barkomatic]

Well, I tested handylight on an iPhone 5 (on iOS7) with an old macbook pro that was running snow leopard and it still did not work. I guess that means it wasn't Mavericks specifically that disabled handylight but something in iOS7. I can connect to the ad hoc network created by the mac and the iPhone can connect to that network--but the iPhone can no longer push an internet connection to the mac. Maybe there is a setting I can tweak.

 

[jricks92]

It has to be something within the latest iOS releases. I used HandyLight on my iPhone 5 with iOS 7 before, but I think with either 7.0.2 or 7.0.3 it's been broken... I hope we can find a work around soon!

I've attached a screenshot from the Settings -> Cellular page that shows all the usage from apps. I've definitely used it to tether while on iOS 7... but now that i'm on 7.0.3 it's not working

 

[barkomatic]

It has to be something within the latest iOS releases. I used HandyLight on my iPhone 5 with iOS 7 before, but I think with either 7.0.2 or 7.0.3 it's been broken... I hope we can find a work around soon!

I've attached a screenshot from the Settings -> Cellular page that shows all the usage from apps. I've definitely used it to tether while on iOS 7... but now that i'm on 7.0.3 it's not working

Well, Apple released a minor update (7.0.4) today so perhaps that will randomly fix it. I'll test it later. I imagine that Apple didn't deliberately block this app since so few people managed to get it.

 

[badtzmaru]

I believe Mavericks broke it. Handylight on iOS 7 was working fine with my Air up until I upgraded to Mavericks. 7.0.4 doesn't seem to have fixed it. Sad

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Update: I am able to use Handy Light with my iMac, which is running OS X 10.6.8. Just posted this update with it.

So the problem appears to be in Mavericks, maybe with the proxy setup? A unix whiz might be able to fix it.

 

[Uncle David]

I believe Mavericks broke it.

Handy Light is working fine on my MBP when I boot from a Snow Leopard partition. It only fails when I boot from the Mavericks partition. I'm running iOS 7.0.3 on my iPhone 5.

 

[philipdistefano]

Sorry to necro this thread, but after having only recently realized that Mavericks broke Handylight, and Google searches proving useless, I wanted to post that I found a workaround. That is, I have Handlight tethering working on Mavericks.

To get it working again, you need Firefox.

Change your Wi-Fi network settings to this:

Go into your Firefox preferences, advanced, change to this:

In the Firefox address bar, type "about:config" and change the filter to "network.proxy.socks". Find the entry that ends in "remote_dns" and double click it to change the value to true.

At this point, you should be able to create your adhoc network like normal, join it on your iPhone like normal, and do the purple Handylight screen to tether like normal.

Any questions, let me know! Cheers all.

 

[barkomatic]

Thanks! This worked for me as well.

 

[JonathanK81]

Anyway we can do this using Safari or Chrome?

 

[philipdistefano]

Thanks! This worked for me as well.

No problem! Happy to help.

Anyway we can do this using Safari or Chrome?

Since Safari uses OS X's system network settings - and I believe Chrome does as well - I'm not entirely sure it's possible. It *might* be possible using third party proxy software like MacProxy (which isn't free, and if that even still works in Mavericks), but I can't provide any sort of guide for that other than that you'd need to try to best mimic the settings I've laid out here.

 

[nicks80]

Small update - Handlylight 1.0.1 still runs on iOS 10 and works with Firefox on OS X 10.12 macOS Sierra. My current test based on my location / reception are 12.3Mbs Down and 6.24 Upload 499ms latency from a Dallas, TX server. - Thanks again
philipdistefano