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iTether App Offers Internet Tethering On Your iPhone for One Time Fee

Well...

As of right now, 11:04 pm PDT, this app is not ready for prime time.

1. the Mac-resident software is crashing
2. the iphone-resident app can not phone home because the servers are swamped
3. There is a phone-home ( as in a software call to there developer's servers) feature that could be a real problem on a half a dozen fronts.
4. Did I mention I can not get it to work?


I would hold off buying it for 12 hours until the developers have a chance to fix things and we'll see what Apple, ATT and Verizon have to say about it.

Buyer be ware!
 
macnerd93 said:
suppose its good for you Americans, but do you even get unlimited data? I'm on 3 in the UK on the one plan and the data is called all-you-can-eat there is no fair usage policy at all and that also includes tethering from my 4S free of charge to any device all for £35.00 a month get 2000 min, 5000 text, 5000 three to three min, so worth it.
Click to expand...

A lot of old iPhone users have unlimited data from grandfathered plans.
 
I'm so jazzed this is over usb!

As soon as they get their server back up, I'm going to try it out in concert with Air Display. USB provides suitable bandwidth to make the iPad a great external display...

wait, if this app can't background... hmmm.
 
elgrecomac said:
As of right now, 11:04 pm PDT, this app is not ready for prime time.

1. the Mac-resident software is crashing
2. the iphone-resident app can not phone home because the servers are swamped
3. There is a phone-home ( as in a software call to there developer's servers) feature that could be a real problem on a half a dozen fronts.
4. Did I mention I can not get it to work?


I would hold off buying it for 12 hours until the developers have a chance to fix things and we'll see what Apple, ATT and Verizon have to say about it.

Buyer be ware!
Click to expand...

So again I ask "Why is the software calling the main website?"

Sounds questionable to me.
 
Got a hold of this app, wasn't gonna miss out on this like I did NetShare. Now all I need is the iPhone 5 with 4G LTE so I can get faster speeds than 3mbps down and 1 mbps up!
 
patient?

@elgrecomac

I don't know. By then, Apple will likely kills this puppy.

Got mine to work again. I was denied access for about 45 minutes. Crossing finger
 
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Thanks for the heads up, MR & Arn! Posting on here via my tethered VZW iPad 2 3G. :)

Also tested and working from my AT&T iPhone 4 w/ grandfathered unlimited plan. Had to run/kill/run the app several times before it could latch on to a connection. Once connected, things are nice and fast.

Worth the $15 - now somebody please find a way to enable the FaceTime over 3G plist without jail breaking, and I'll be golden. :)
 
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They won't ever be able to make this work over wifi (to turn the iPhone into a WiFi hotspot you have to have AT&T's consent).

However: I suspect that they should be able to do it over bluetooth. Nothing wrong at all with having an App speak to a computer over a bluetooth connection... and if that App happens to be transcribing data from the phone's net connection... that shouldn't have any bearing on it.

Now the question is: why would you want to use bluetooth instead? USB is faster... and with bluetooth you can still only talk to one device at a time. AND the phone still has to physically be close to the computer it's tethered to... so might as well use USB.
 
friedmud said:
They won't ever be able to make this work over wifi (to turn the iPhone into a WiFi hotspot you have to have AT&T's consent).

However: I suspect that they should be able to do it over bluetooth. Nothing wrong at all with having an App speak to a computer over a bluetooth connection... and if that App happens to be transcribing data from the phone's net connection... that shouldn't have any bearing on it.

Now the question is: why would you want to use bluetooth instead? USB is faster... and with bluetooth you can still only talk to one device at a time. AND the phone still has to physically be close to the computer it's tethered to... so might as well use USB.
Click to expand...

Why do you think they need consent from ATT to talk over wifi???
 
Rad99004 said:
So again I ask "Why is the software calling the main website?"

Sounds questionable to me.
Click to expand...

It's important to note that this isn't some fly-by-night operation -- they've been running legit versions of the same app on other platforms for a while.

I don't see a reason to be paranoid.
 
Rad99004 said:
So again I ask "Why is the software calling the main website?"

Sounds questionable to me.
Click to expand...

Rodimus Prime made a good point about this. He basically explained it as a holdover from the WinMo and BB versions of the App (because it is harder to verify a _real_ purchase on those platforms).

Maybe the developers will remove this from the iPhone app in an update (it's obviously getting them a ton of bad press right now... and probably losing them potential customers).
 
OK, the last App Store tethering app I used (PayUpPunk / PayUpSucker) did an Ad-hoc WiFi SOCKS proxy. The screen stayed on, 3G was on, and WiFi was at 100%. Basically, it drained the battery. Of course, you had to jump through the SOCKS proxy and Ad-hoc hoops to get it working.

This seems better. WiFi off, USB connected (and charging), screen off. Nothing to configure, either.
It works well on my 4S (St. Louis).

The downside is, of course, it requires a client application and unfortunately "phones home" for permission to run.
 

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friedmud said:
Now the question is: why would you want to use bluetooth instead? USB is faster... and with bluetooth you can still only talk to one device at a time. AND the phone still has to physically be close to the computer it's tethered to... so might as well use USB.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't bluetooth theoretically open the door to tethering an iPad to an iPhone? Would be nice to keep my phone in my pocket and nab it's internet connection for the iPad in my hands.
 
dukebound85 said:
Why do you think they need consent from ATT to talk over wifi???
Click to expand...

Not to "talk over wifi" but to turn on the wifi hotspot capability of the phone (ie turn it into a Wifi router). Those APIs are protected and can be locked down by the carrier (like they are on ATT).

If you had a way to connect the phone to your internal Wifi network (like normal) then run a "server" on the phone that talked over your own wifi network to your macbook and simultaneously talked over the 3G network... then you would be in business.

Unfortunately, as far as I know the iPhone can't (won't?) talk over two different "network" interfaces simultaneously. ie you can't make an app that would translate from wifi to 3G (other than the built in Wifi hotspot capability which can be shut down by the carrier).

What Tether has done is _really_ smart because they realized that they could write their own communications protocol that just worked through the USB connection. The iPhone doesn't "see" that as a network interface so it will happily still send "internet bound" bits out the 3G connection while the App translates stuff and shoves it down the USB pipe.

All legal and above board.
 
friedmud said:
What Tether has done is _really_ smart because they realized that they could write their own communications protocol that just worked through the USB connection. The iPhone doesn't "see" that as a network interface so it will happily still send "internet bound" bits out the 3G connection while the App translates stuff and shoves it down the USB pipe.

All legal and above board.
Click to expand...

Does that mean ATT can not detect it from your understanding?
 
from the boondocks

1618730233.png


nearest server that they could find was approximately 700 miles away.
 
Number 41 said:
Wouldn't bluetooth theoretically open the door to tethering an iPad to an iPhone? Would be nice to keep my phone in my pocket and nab it's internet connection for the iPad in my hands.
Click to expand...

I don't think so...

(first read my above post about why you can't do this over wifi)

When I said that they could use bluetooth... I didn't necessarily mean that they would be using the "network interface" bluetooth protocol... which is what you would need to use for the iPad to be able to use it.

Instead, they would just use the "dummy serial port" bluetooth interface... and they would have their own communications protocol for sending / receiving bits over it (just like they are doing now for USB).

It would still require a program to run on your Macbook to do the translation and send the bits over the raw bluetooth link.

Unfortunately, the iPad can't exactly operate that way. They would have to make an App that makes a raw bluetooth connection. That would work, but unfortunately you wouldn't be able to background it... or get other apps to talk over that connection.

However, I suppose that you could make a whole app that would have a built in web browser that would talk over that bluetooth connection instead of over the "normal" internet connection on the iPad... but that would be a _ton_ of work and nothing else on the iPad would be able to use that connection.
 
Posting through it now. :D Missed out on Netshare, did grab Handylight but this is way, way easier.

If the server issue doesn't persist past tonight's hammering it'll be well worth it.

ETA - Speedtest from Verizon 3G gave a ping of 146 ms, download 2.24 Mbps and upload 0.66 Mbps. Good enough for browsing.
 
11:19pm PST Working Great!

I was getting 503 errors when trying to download the PC/MAC clients, but was able to get both downloaded. I then purchased the app and ran it, 1st run got the non-registered message on the iPhone and then stopped it and re-ran and it registered.

Started the MAC client on a MBA with Lion and connected straightaway.

speedtest.net -> Ping 235ms, Download 3.24Mbps, Upload 1.00Mbps

ATT Service with 2 bars/3G on iPhone 4 with IOS 5.01
----

Stopped app on iPhone and MBA and restarted and failed first time to register on iPhone (similar to first test) and 2nd time it registered.

Used mac mail, booked a hotel room on expedia, surfed the web and no problems.

Used handy light too, but mac mail didn't work with socks proxy, but this works fine.

Just need this for the few times you need to get online to checkin for a flight, surf web, etc...not sure why ATT has to nail you both on cost and data to get this capability....oh well if this lasts for a bit to meet my needs it will be money well spent.

Also posted while connected via itether!
 
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