Hotspot

I don't think it works in this beta.

 

That was my impression too, but after playing around with it for a while I think that either we misunderstood or it's not quite functional yet. Right now I can go into the wifi settings on my iPad and select my phone's personal hotspot and it will connect (some of the time) and use data from my phone without having to enter a password and without hotspot being enabled on my phone, which are both new and convenient features. However, I couldn't get it to automatically connect to my phone when the iPad didn't have any other connection. I'm hoping that will come with a future beta.

 

I don't think this was advertised.

 

Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part then, but I did leave the keynote with the impression that it would work that way. Maybe I should go back and re-watch it. I was a bit distracted during some parts. If it doesn't work that way, though it would definitely be an awesome feature and I'd love to see it in a future version. That would allow me to stop buying cellular capable iPads and save a decent amount of money on the initial purchase and on the data plan throughout the year.

 

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-gains-intelligent-instant-hotspot-feature/

 

Automatically list... Automatically connect... It's close Guess it is pretty much working as intended then, but I'd still love to see an automatic connection.

Still, though, this might be enough for me to give up on cellular iPads. I had considered it before, but it was way too much trouble to go and enable the personal hotspot on my phone every time I wanted to use data on the iPad and then disable it when i was done. At least this saves those steps.

 

This is definitely not how it works for me. I can see and connect to the hotspot on my iPhone from my iPad even while it's turned off in the settings. Obviously both devices need to be on iOS8 and also check to make sure that bluetooth is enabled on both devices. It seems that some of this syncing is done through bluetooth. I believe that both devices also need to be connected to iCloud with the same Apple ID.

Assuming all that is well, then I saw one post that suggested that you might need to log out of iCloud and then log in again on both devices. You could also try to reset network settings on both devices (this is reasonably harmless, but you will lose any saved wifi passwords and VPN configurations).

If all that fails, then you might just need to wait for beta 2.

 

The iPad to iPhone Instant Hotspot feature does connect with WiFi, correct? Even if it needs bluetooth to setup the connection, once connected, does it use WiFi for the data transfer?

I ask because I have found iPad to iPhone over bluetooth was just slow enough to make me switch over to WiFi. I would like the higher speeds to make use of Instant Hotspot.

 

Get a new carrier. Tmobile & ATT are in most cases faster than WIFI in NYC with the exception being Google Starbucks and Verizon FIOS.

The instant connect featured actually worked for me. It's just that once turned on I couldn't get it to stay on even though it was showing that it was on with my mac. My iPad has it's own LTE connection so hotspot is of no use to me with it. I will say that overall the iPhone BETA is way more stable than the iPad beta versions of the app.

 

I think poorcody is talking about the hotspot connection i.e. A wifi personal hotspot is faster than a bluetooth personal hotspot.

I am hoping that this feature works thusly:
1) Bluetooth used to detect proximity of (say) iPad to iPhone.
2) Both devices use same Apple ID and have been setup to allow automatic hotspot.
3) iPad automatically enables hotspot on iPhone and uses a peer-to-peer wifi connection to its hotspot.

No external wifi network needed.

 

I would assume that it uses wifi as you still connect to it through Settings | Wi-Fi, but I'm not absolutely certain and I'm not sure I can come up with a good way to test it.

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Actually, I did come up with a good way to test it. I simply connected to my personal hotspot, then disabled bluetooth on my ipad. The connection remained functional, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that it uses wifi.

 

Tethering by bluetooth from the iPhone is limited to around 1.5mpbs I believe, regardless of carrier/connection etc.

Awesome, thanks, that sounds like the ticket.

I think this will allow me to drop my iPad data plan. Having to mess with the iPhone every time I restarted tethering was enough of a pain I stopped using it. I think this will be easy enough. Could save me $13/month!

 

Ive measured and its never been limited to 1.5mbps

 

I've measured it too and it is. Tether your iPad to your iPhone first with bluetooth, and then with WiFi. Run Speedtest.net and you will see it.

 

I will try again.

 

Does Instant Hotspot auto-reconnect

I've got another question... once you've established a WiFi connection with Instant Hotspot, will it reconnect automatically later, or do you have to manually select it each time?

Specifically, if say I put my iPad to sleep for 20 minutes, and come back and wake it up, does it act like a normal WiFi connection and auto-reconnect?

 

From my quick testing, it looks like you will need to select it each time after a long break. I connected to the personal hotspot, then put my ipad to sleep. I woke it up again about 3 or 4 minutes later and it did reconnect, so I thought that was good. I put it asleep again and didn't wake it up for another 30 minutes or so. At that point it did not reconnect. So it looks like there's a little grace period there, but at some point it gives up and you need to reconnect manually.

 

Yes and no. You still have to go into wifi settings and select it. Not going to just do it.

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That might be your service, not ios

 

Thanks... sounds similar to how current WiFi tethering with iPad works. I wish they could combine the auto-connect of bluetooth tether with WiFi tether. I can't help wonder if they want to make tethering just a little less convenient so people will buy cellular iPads.

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Do a Google search on "iPhone bluetooth tethering speed", you'll see lot's of talk about it.