Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Netshare or Netscare?

arcanic

arcanic

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 1, 2007
128
0
Charlotte, NC
Howdy MacRum -

So now that some of us have Netshare....who is brave enough to actually use it? I've been staring at it for over a week now, but I have to admit....I'm scared to use it. I use on average abound 5GB per month with my air card. I thought about canceling the air card and just using Netshare.

What's everyone else doing with Netshare?

Arc:)
 
Just moved house, don't have the internet yet. Been using it a lot. Downloaded 2.0.1 with it, PS3 firmware upgrade, and been surfing around a lot.

That said, I wish it'd turn off the screen. I've had to disable auto-lock for it, and with WiFi+3G+screen, the battery dies after a couple of hours (even when plugged in, it's using more than it gets through the plug). I've set the brightness down to 0, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
 
Saladinos said:
Just moved house, don't have the internet yet. Been using it a lot. Downloaded 2.0.1 with it, PS3 firmware upgrade, and been surfing around a lot.

That said, I wish it'd turn off the screen. I've had to disable auto-lock for it, and with WiFi+3G+screen, the battery dies after a couple of hours (even when plugged in, it's using more than it gets through the plug). I've set the brightness down to 0, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
Click to expand...

i may be a little worried if i were you to be honest
 
Saladinos said:
Just moved house, don't have the internet yet. Been using it a lot. Downloaded 2.0.1 with it, PS3 firmware upgrade, and been surfing around a lot.

That said, I wish it'd turn off the screen. I've had to disable auto-lock for it, and with WiFi+3G+screen, the battery dies after a couple of hours (even when plugged in, it's using more than it gets through the plug). I've set the brightness down to 0, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
Click to expand...

Wow - regarding the power consumtion thing....I had heard a rumor of that, but dismissed it....your story confirms it. That sucks.:(
 
I too, was one of the lucky ones to get it. But I just set it up, tried it and saw it worked. and that was about it for me. I probably won't use it much as most places have WI-FI where I go. But its nice to know I can use it if I need too.
 
Excellerator said:
I too, was one of the lucky ones to get it. But I just set it up, tried it and saw it worked. and that was about it for me. I probably won't use it much as most places have WI-FI where I go. But its nice to know I can use it if I need too.
Click to expand...

Same here. I'll use it on the rare occasion that i want to use my laptop and theres no wifi around, but doing your daily surfing on it is pretty dumb and will put excessive wear on your iPhone.
 
Saladinos said:
Just moved house, don't have the internet yet. Been using it a lot. Downloaded 2.0.1 with it, PS3 firmware upgrade, and been surfing around a lot.

That said, I wish it'd turn off the screen. I've had to disable auto-lock for it, and with WiFi+3G+screen, the battery dies after a couple of hours (even when plugged in, it's using more than it gets through the plug). I've set the brightness down to 0, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
Click to expand...

i would recommend, if you are jailbroken, to get Insomnia.app. the app keeps all connections alive while the screen is off (disables the "disabling" of connection in sleep mode) so you can turn insomnia on, lock the phone and 3G-tether on your way~ i havent tested the battery life on that but it should be a ton better than you keeping the screen on.
 
Saladinos said:
That said, I wish it'd turn off the screen. I've had to disable auto-lock for it, and with WiFi+3G+screen, the battery dies after a couple of hours (even when plugged in, it's using more than it gets through the plug). I've set the brightness down to 0, but it doesn't make much of a difference.
Click to expand...


Dies after a couple of hours plugged in!!!! You got to be kidding me! Boy I'm loving my 2.5G iPhone more and more everyday.
 
arcanic said:
Wow - regarding the power consumtion thing....I had heard a rumor of that, but dismissed it....your story confirms it. That sucks.:(
Click to expand...

Yup same basic thing happened to me the other night. I left my iphone plugged in, and using pandora overnight. In the morning, my battery was more dead than when i fell asleep, and my iphone was pretty warm. when i plugged it in to charge it, it would show the plugged in sign that the battery was full, while displaying an almost dead battery. after letting the iphone restart and cool down, all was back to normal.
 
slicecom said:
Same here. I'll use it on the rare occasion that i want to use my laptop and theres no wifi around, but doing your daily surfing on it is pretty dumb and will put excessive wear on your iPhone.
Click to expand...

Excessive wear? it's a solid state machine. There are no gears or moving parts to wear out.
 
MadGoat said:
Excessive wear? it's a solid state machine. There are no gears or moving parts to wear out.
Click to expand...

The heat and cool cycles put a strain on all parts, from the internals to the plastic phone backing. The phone is made of a ton of different materials that expand and contract at totally different rates, causing parts to pull apart or push together. Also, quickly draining the battery repeatedly could have adverse affects on battery life over time as well.
 
I got it but am not worried. I don't use it as a main net connection. In fact I hardly ever use it. Thus far I only used it once to test it. I got it simply because I there are rare occasions when I need net access and I don't have any other means. For instance when I was visiting a friend in Florida who just moved and didn't have internet setup yet I tethered my on Blackjack so I could check email and pull up a few websites so we knew where to go. It was very handy when I needed it but honestly rarely ever used. I never had any issues with overage or any complaints from AT&T/Cingular. Unless you use it daily as a main connection I highly doubt you will ever have any issues. Even if you do have an issue talk to a customer rep and tell them you were told it was an unlimited plan and thusly you thought it was exactly that. Unless you have called many times before asking for things to be removed odds are very high they will remove any charges from your bill. They removed an $8,000 (you read that right) charge for international roaming data a couple years back, so I doubt you would have many issues with the relatively small overage you may incur.
 
I am using it every now and then, and it works just fine. It is a pain to have to leave the screen on, as already mentioned, and it is a bit of a fiddle to pair up the iPhone and laptop each time (but a Location profile in Network Preferences on the Mac specifically for the tether speeds up switching between at-home and on-the-road considerably).

I don't expect to get any warnings from O2 - it's not like I'm going to be downloading the next series of Heroes in 720p off of Usenet with it! Ahem.
 
Whats there to be worried about, you can keep track of your data on your phone to make sure you're not going overboard.
 
slicecom said:
Also, quickly draining the battery repeatedly could have adverse affects on battery life over time as well.
Click to expand...

The battery life is crap, so I'm charging mine 2+ times a day.

I fully expect to have poor battery performance within 9 months, but who cares, it's under warranty and AppleCare will replace it.
 
goodcow said:
The battery life is crap, so I'm charging mine 2+ times a day.

I fully expect to have poor battery performance within 9 months, but who cares, it's under warranty and AppleCare will replace it.
Click to expand...

AppleCare has never covered batteries unless they completely stop working. If your battery just doesn't hold a charge like it did when it was new.... don't hold your breath that Apple is going to replace the battery or the phone under the warranty.
 
For me it is a safety valve. Something I can get up and going in short order if I need to deal with something.

I can think of at least 2 times in the last two years it would have helped me out enormously, so the $10 to have it as standby is worth it for sure.
 
Jestered said:
AppleCare has never covered batteries unless they completely stop working. If your battery just doesn't hold a charge like it did when it was new.... don't hold your breath that Apple is going to replace the battery or the phone under the warranty.
Click to expand...

If the battery performance is extremely poor (i.e. can't hold 50% of its original charge) they will replace the battery.
 
SolRayz said:
Dies after a couple of hours plugged in!!!! You got to be kidding me! Boy I'm loving my 2.5G iPhone more and more everyday.
Click to expand...


Your 2.5 iPhone doesn't have 3g service so intrawebs on netshare=slow... So how do you win?
 
Ugh, i wish i would have gotten it when it was on there to get. I have to keep my old 8525 around to swap sim cards when i want to tether. The 8525 comes with a program just like this from the factory.
 
Only used it one time to test. The app is great as a backup but I would never us it as a main internet connection. I think it loads the iPhone down quite a bit. My phone got pretty hot just surfing the web after about 10 minutes.

Quite honestly I don't know what AT&T is worried about. If Netshare sucks power faster than what the battery charger can provide, most people won't bother with it for any long term use.

Tethering with Netshare is nice but it's not easy for the average person to setup. It's basically a geek function at this point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back