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iTether App Pulled From App Store

Some of you act like $15 is every last cent you have in the world. And while I realize that is true for far far too many people in the world these days, I find it hard to believe it's true for people with a $1000+ Mac, a $300 iPhone and a $80/month carrier contract.

In fact, most of you probably spend $6 for a cup of coffee at least twice a week. Get over yourselves.

Mark
 
tfitzsimons said:
I always theorized that these high price tethering services are meant to keep out casual users so that they can take advantage of corporate customers who have no concerns about cost and thus will simply pay whatever they are charged...
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Same business model the airlines used for years. Charge outrageous prices for seats on flights knowing that corporate / business travel will pay whatever if they need to be somewhere to close a deal or meet with a client.
 
Mark Booth said:
Some of you act like $15 is every last cent you have in the world. And while I realize that is true for far far too many people in the world these days, I find it hard to believe it's true for people with a $1000+ Mac, a $300 iPhone and a $80/month carrier contract.

In fact, most of you probably spend $6 for a cup of coffee at least twice a week. Get over yourselves.

Mark
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I think it's less about the price you pay per month and more about the fact that literally every other country allows people to use their data however they want to since the customer has paid for that set amount of data.
 
...funniest part is it was released on Cyber Monday at full price. Didn't even bother saying "hey, we will give it to you for 50% off for Cyber Monday"

I see what they did there....

Well that was my subway lunch for this week
 
Mr. Gates said:
Besides, most people that care about being connected have internet at work and home. When you travel the hotel provides it. At the coffee shop...etc etc ..
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I don't know where you travel, but the majority of airports I travel to require you to pay for day-passes (usually $9.99 - $15) for internet access. Same for hotels.

Plus, public WiFi stinks. Everyone's phones / pads / computers sharing the same sliver of bandwidth? No thanks.
 
Mr. Pink said:
It's no longer available. Get it? Satire!
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Here's the statement:

Around 12PM EST, Apple called our head office to let us know they were going to go ahead and pull our app iTether from the App Store. They stated it was because the app itself burdens the carrier network, however they offered us no way to remedy the solution… We were very clear when listing the app what the primary function was and they even followed up with several questions and requested a video demo then they approved the application.

We strongly disagree that it burdens a carrier’s network, as from our own data history on more than 500,000 users we know the average user consumes less than 200 MBs of data per month on Tether. In comparison, one TV show streamed from Netflix, an approved Apple App, could easily be in the 300-400 MBs range. Sure, there are some users that will consume way more than the average however that’s the case with any of these types of products.

Our team is very disappointed in Apple’s decision; as we strongly believe we help carriers better monetize their data stream by pushing customers into new data tiers further increasing their bottom-line. It is very anti-competitive to not allow any Tethering application to enter into this space to innovate. Our team has created a lot of innovative solutions for the BlackBerry product, which we were hoping to port over to the iPhone like end-to-end encryption, compression, website filtering and port filtering.

According to Apple, users who purchase iTether before it was pulled will continue to be able to use the product.

Our team is evaluating all of our options… Stay tuned.
 
Tapdawg said:
I think it's less about the price you pay per month and more about the fact that literally every other country allows people to use their data however they want to since the customer has paid for that set amount of data.
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Many people are on unlimited plans. Do you think they should be able to tether without limit or cost?

Charging for tethering on a capped plan is silly, but I can understand on unlimited.
 
Beaverman3001 said:
https://tether.com/apple-pulls-itether

Their word on it, unfortunately it won't load for me, I feel like I'm being trolled.
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Their response

Around 12PM EST, Apple called our head office to let us know they were going to go ahead and pull our app iTether from the App Store. They stated it was because the app itself burdens the carrier network, however they offered us no way to remedy the solution… We were very clear when listing the app what the primary function was and they even followed up with several questions and requested a video demo then they approved the application.

We strongly disagree that it burdens a carrier’s network, as from our own data history on more than 500,000 users we know the average user consumes less than 200 MBs of data per month on Tether. In comparison, one TV show streamed from Netflix, an approved Apple App, could easily be in the 300-400 MBs range. Sure, there are some users that will consume way more than the average however that’s the case with any of these types of products.

Our team is very disappointed in Apple’s decision; as we strongly believe we help carriers better monetize their data stream by pushing customers into new data tiers further increasing their bottom-line. It is very anti-competitive to not allow any Tethering application to enter into this space to innovate. Our team has created a lot of innovative solutions for the BlackBerry product, which we were hoping to port over to the iPhone like end-to-end encryption, compression, website filtering and port filtering.

According to Apple, users who purchase iTether before it was pulled will continue to be able to use the product.

Our team is evaluating all of our options… Stay tuned.
Click to expand...
 
Small White Car said:
I don't think it was a mistake. Apple seemed to understand exactly what it did before they put it in the store.

My guess is that they were pushing the limits with the carriers to see if they complained. Of course, they did, but perhaps Apple wanted to make them have to complain, just to let them know that Apple could totally allow this if they wanted to.

Perhaps some future pricing negotiations are going on right now and Apple wanted to let them know who really has the power right now.

I dunno. Far fetched? Maybe. Or maybe not.
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I totally agree with this. This was far too obvious to miss, especially since the developer said they had numerous conversations with Apple to explain what the app did before approval.

Apple is getting tired of carriers whoring out their customers on these tethering plans and is sending a message.
 
GreyStreet said:
Many people are on unlimited plans. Do you think they should be able to tether without limit or cost?

Charging for tethering on a capped plan is silly, but I can understand on unlimited.
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That's the grey line... I say as long as they reduce speeds for those who abuse it then it shouldn't be a problem.
 
But hypothetically speaking right....

Say I get a new iPhone. How do I get the app back to a new device? Or is a backup the only way?
 
I was toying with the idea of caving and surrendering my unlimited plan (ATT) for the 4G+tether and pay the extra $15 p/m... then I saw the app this morning and thought AWESOME! Best of both worlds! I'll grab it later when their servers lighten up.

But now... crap. missed it.

I'm not a heavy user, but there are times I wished I had the ability to tether. It's ridiculous that carriers get away with charging more for this function. Yes, with unlimited I can see a potential problem, so cap or throttle those abusers.
 
ericinboston said:
But where I see the problem is that you are not using your mobile iPhone 24x7 on the internet. If you tether it, there's no stopping you from now setting up a router and allowing numerous devices to use the connection 24x7. Yes, of course you are still only going to get the same bandwidth in total, but you are allowing your devices to run non-stop (such as uploading 300 pix to Shutterfly or downloading some tunes or FTPing some files or simply surfing).
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Yeah, that's the consumption device "fee" I discussed. I think moving into 2012 though, it's become more common for mobile devices to run as non-stop as PCs (heck, Apple's iCloud/iTM had compounded this further). I can stream my Netflix to a TV via Airplay (and consume pretty high amounts of bandwidth), and people talk about sitting around _all_day_ listening to Pandora radio, etc.

I do follow what you're saying though and I agree up to a point! I guess I'm the same agree/disagree as you, where I get the logic, even if I think it's becoming less and less applicable, and obviously I'm also on the consumer side of this, so I have a bias driven by my wallet :D

Funny enough, we did actually convert the Wife's iPhone account from "unlimited" to the 2+2GB+tethering plan. I needed something reliable for when we travel, and I didn't want to deal with covert use, adhoc fees, bitchy text messages from AT&T.
 
*LTD* said:
It is ONE app that was pulled, among thousands upon thousands that get approved. And one that performs a questionable function from a carrier perspective, which Apple really can't do anything about at the end of the day.
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Who cares how many other apps get approved? And who cares what the carriers thinks about the functions of *my* phone? At least my carrier doesn't care at all, if I want to tether I am perfectly free to do so. Data is data, what matters is how much bandwidth the carrier is able to provide.

My carrier didn't offer unlimited plans at a low price to find afterwards to be unable to actually provide the service they sold. The unlimited plan is pretty expensive (and rightly so). The normal plan has a monthly cap perfectly fine for normal usage but which would get consumed pretty quickly with heavy tethering. In short words, the carrier sells what it can actually offer, if I need/want more, I pay more. How I use the bandwidth I bought is my business and the carrier has no reason to care (and actually does not care at all).

Other carriers decided it was best to try to deceive consumers with cheap unlimited or high cap contracts without the ability to actually provide them. Now they have to find ways to artificially cap bandwidth usage through these "no tether" policies.
 
According to Apple, users who purchase iTether before it was pulled will continue to be able to use the product.
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No mention of refund options for exactly this reason, as expected. It'll work as intended for us. Congrats. Party. Etc.
 
Mac App

Hello,
I downloaded the app from the App Store in time, however the website was down during the time. I tried using the MacRumors link to tether.com to download the Mac Application, but it was a faulty .dmg file.

Can somebody e-mail me or post a link to an active .dmg file?

Thanks!
Willis Chung
willisxchung@yahoo.com
 
GreyStreet said:
Many people are on unlimited plans. Do you think they should be able to tether without limit or cost?

Charging for tethering on a capped plan is silly, but I can understand on unlimited.
Click to expand...

but then how is it really unlimited if they are worried how much data you use? That's like time warner charging for using a router so multiple users can access at once instead of just one computer. You are paying for data...so if you use 2gb why does it matter if your ipad used the data or your phone used it? Instead they want to double dip and make you get data on your iPad AND your iPhone.

If you are on the unlimited plan....why can't you use your unlimited data and why would it matter if it was from multiple devices? You are paying for unlimited for a reason right?
 
Kilamite said:
I've still got HandyLight, which was only 0.59p.

Works over WiFi, and aside from taking a minute or two to set up each time, I'm actually quite happy with it. Beats paying $15 for this app, even if it is just a one off payment. HandyLight lets me tether to an iPad, or any WiFi device.
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I was under the impression that HandyLight (along with the original Netshare) could not be used by Mail.app (or other apps that require something other than port 80). Is that not true? Does iTether work with mail that app?
 
Willis Chung said:
Hello,
I downloaded the app from the App Store in time, however the website was down during the time. I tried using the MacRumors link to tether.com to download the Mac Application, but it was a faulty .dmg file.

Can somebody e-mail me or post a link to an active .dmg file?

Thanks!
Willis Chung
willisxchung@yahoo.com
Click to expand...

Go to Tether's Facebook page, there are multiple people mirroring the files you need for Mac or PC:

http://www.facebook.com/Tethercom

Mark
 
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