Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tether Says Apple Pulled iTether App Over Carrier Burden
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Me too. Cause here we say Aus or Aussie and not Oz. Almost no Australian calls Australia - Oz. I've never heard Oz once here in my life by any Aussie. Only by a few foreign tourists.
But he is right about what he said regarding the Aussie carriers.
I agree with many that have posted in thinking that tethering should be a free feature, but as of now it's not. And that's exactly the point, the carriers and Apple don't have to do what I want them to do. Therefore, I would disagree with your definition of "basic capitalism".
According to Merriam Webster:
According to Google:
There are plenty of options when it comes to the mobile market. The problem is people want the device they want and the plan they want, just the way they want it. This kind of attitude is typical of today's American culture and it's emphasis on materialism. Having a cell phone is not a "right", it's a choice.
The free market has determined that it is willing to bear the mobile system as it currently stands. Look at the record number of iPhone sales and the growing mobile market. Getting to pick, "the best option" as you put it, is not the mark of Capitalism. Having choices is the mark of capitalism. No one ever said you had to like the choices or that they would be in your specific budget. I would love to have a better car or a better house, but just because I can't afford a certain neighborhood or a certain automobile doesn't mean there's a monopoly, it just means I can't afford that specific one.
Apple, AT&T, Sprint, & Verizon are not keeping me from being able to get a mobile phone. I could choose to get a pay as you go phone, sign with a regional carrier, or just get a simple voice plan with a simple voice phone. As I posted before, and don't let this shock you, I could even choose not to get a mobile phone at all.
And please, stop mentioning the silly argument about it being too hard to switch. You can choose to sign a contract and be bound by it's terms or you can choose not to sign a contract and be free to cancel at any time. It's your choice, no one is forcing you to get a specific phone with a specific plan and a specific contract. You are choosing to do that. It's no different from any other service or product that comes with a contract (Cable/Television, Internet, Utilities, or a car/home loan).
The app still works fine. Just like the original "tethering without approval" app NetShare continues to work to this day (as long as you don't try to run it on iOS 5, when Apple re-architected the APIs it used.) Since this uses accepted data-over-USB APIs, as long as Apple doesn't completely redo those APIs, it should work fine in to the future. (Also as long as the developer continues to run their license servers, the one major downside of it!)
If only an iPad version had been released...
I was tempted to purchase this despite wanting an iPad version only, on the off chance that the developer would create one before this disallowance occurred. Now that the event has occurred (much) sooner rather than later, it looks like those of us who hesitated made the correct call. How likely is the developer to make an iPad version under the present circumstances? I'm guessing slim to none.
I was tempted to purchase this despite wanting an iPad version only, on the off chance that the developer would create one before this disallowance occurred. Now that the event has occurred (much) sooner rather than later, it looks like those of us who hesitated made the correct call. How likely is the developer to make an iPad version under the present circumstances? I'm guessing slim to none.
Edit - I take it back...itether is iphone only.
I still don't see why you would want to use your iPad to tether..but I guess if it is your only idevice that would make sense.
Edit again - just loaded it onto my ipad.
Last edited:
bit of faulty logic in that Netflix reference since it can and is most often used on wifi, not 3g
----------
Because of their contracts with the carriers.
----------
Actually if you had read the actual app info you would see that it works WITH your carrier plan. The app was created because iOS will only tether iOS devices You can't use your iPhone as a true Mifi. But with this app you could have.
It is possible that the carriers actually saw a spike in data use even in that short time and cried foul over the use, not the money. Or at least cried foul over concerns that, even willing to pay, folks would choke up the towers etc. ANd since the carriers get the greater vote on such issues thanks to the various contracts, Apple had no choice in the matter
----------
Horse crap or not, Apple reserves the right to pull any app for any reason. it's their store, their rules. And we developers agree to this when we sign up.
----------
If it was pulled because of carrier support as suggested, i wonder why Apple didn't stand their ground?
Because of their contracts with the carriers.
----------
Actually if you had read the actual app info you would see that it works WITH your carrier plan. The app was created because iOS will only tether iOS devices You can't use your iPhone as a true Mifi. But with this app you could have.
It is possible that the carriers actually saw a spike in data use even in that short time and cried foul over the use, not the money. Or at least cried foul over concerns that, even willing to pay, folks would choke up the towers etc. ANd since the carriers get the greater vote on such issues thanks to the various contracts, Apple had no choice in the matter
----------
Horse crap or not, Apple reserves the right to pull any app for any reason. it's their store, their rules. And we developers agree to this when we sign up.
Sadly, it's even worse than that since a 160 english character text message consumes only 140 bytes of data. (Due to standard SMS using 7-bit encoding)
Yep... That means 1MB of data will be consumed when you send 7,489 full length text messages.
And why do we pay $0.15/each again...?
Sure and then the carriers refuse to support the iPhone and we end up with a worthless phone that can't make calls because they can't get service
Yup, I'm using Tether right now with my iPad to post this. I figure I'd test it on my iPad just in case I started approaching the 2GB limit on my iPhone while traveling and wanted to share some of my iPad's plan for another 2GB. I doubt I'd ever need this though because when I tether I'm using SSH, email, and http/https and light Pandora usage. I'm lucky to hit 500mb per month. I currently have a 4G mifi with Verizon that I get 5gb per month. Figure with Tether I can get rid of that. Since I only use about 500mb per month across my iPhone AND 3G iPad I feel zero guilt "getting away with" using Tether. I never stream movies unless at home on my Apple TV.
Finally there is a benefit to living in Australia with iOS
We Ozzies often miss out on many iOS and other apps that are released in the US only - or we have to register a second US iTunes account. Google Voice - still not available here (I have an invite that's 2 years old now!).
Our mobile carriers certainly aren't known for being the best in the world either. In fact - I hate being with Telstra as their customer service is abysmal if they even know what such a thing is; but if you want to make a call outside of the city, or even in some places in the middle city you can't use anyone else.
Yet we get to use the iPhone's in built-in Personal Hotspot on the iOS devices without any extra charge. So I can seamlessly link up via Wi-fi, bluetooth, USB with and share my iPhone internet connection all day long (well, until my quota runs out and then get charged an exorbitant amount for an extra Mb or two)
I can express sympathy with US in this regard - it doesn't seem fair to charge extra for what? what you have already, just used in a different way? Daft.
But this one thing makes me glad to be here. That and the sun and surf (but not the sharks).
We Ozzies often miss out on many iOS and other apps that are released in the US only - or we have to register a second US iTunes account. Google Voice - still not available here (I have an invite that's 2 years old now!).
Our mobile carriers certainly aren't known for being the best in the world either. In fact - I hate being with Telstra as their customer service is abysmal if they even know what such a thing is; but if you want to make a call outside of the city, or even in some places in the middle city you can't use anyone else.
Yet we get to use the iPhone's in built-in Personal Hotspot on the iOS devices without any extra charge. So I can seamlessly link up via Wi-fi, bluetooth, USB with and share my iPhone internet connection all day long (well, until my quota runs out and then get charged an exorbitant amount for an extra Mb or two)
I can express sympathy with US in this regard - it doesn't seem fair to charge extra for what? what you have already, just used in a different way? Daft.
But this one thing makes me glad to be here. That and the sun and surf (but not the sharks).
at the end of the day it doesnt even matter why it was removed. itunes store and all things apple are tightly closed. their world, their rules.
One thing that's interesting to me and I don't believe this has been legally challenged is if there's any recourse in a situation where a customer has purchased an app legally (it's not the customer's responsibility Apple's team didn't catch it) and the app is removed and the customer loses his app on his device and doesn't have a backup and wants to download it again? Apple I believe now advertises that stuff is "stored in the cloud" and anything previously purchased is available to pull down from the cloud. I realize the contract allows them to remove apps, but if something was purchased with the understanding that it will always be "in the cloud" and a customer purchased something based on that, what's the legal recourse?
Now I know about all the fine print and even disclaimers that aren't in such fine print. I'm talking about true real legal opinion if someone were to want to stand on principal. For example, I can sell someone a laptop and have them sign a contract that states they cannot look at pornography on said laptop. It doesn't mean that legally that can actually be enforced. Another case in point is jailbraking. For years everyone has been on the bandwagon about Apple not allowing this and everyone was in fear of big brother bricking their device. Eventually it was found (just recently) that Apple doesn't have as much control as Steve would have liked and have limited control of what I do with my device.
I see the same thing with tethering. AT&T can muscle people around and decide to add tethering to your bill automatically if they feel like you're tethering but what is the legal precedent? I don't believe there is one. Particularly in the case of non-unlimited plans where we sign up for say 2GB per month. Their argument is it puts a strain on their network. Well there isn't a legal precedent that could really be proven in court that this is the case up to the 2GB that I've "bought". Pandora, web surfing (most sites don't have lower-bandwidth mobile versions still), email, etc use just as much bandwidth on an iphone as they do on a laptop. If someone is "caught" tethering and has used say 500mb of bandwidth or whatever the approximate mean bandwidth is for all iphone customers can the argument really be made that they're putting excessive stress on the infrastructure? The only real exception to this would probably be online gaming or running a server. Obviously you're not going to be playing WoW online with a bunch of your buddies on your smartphone ( at least not yet!).
Again, I know what the "scary" contracts say, but is there a precedent? A REAL precedent.
Sadly, it's even worse than that since a 160 english character text message consumes only 140 bytes of data. (Due to standard SMS using 7-bit encoding)
Yep... That means 1MB of data will be consumed when you send 7,489 full length text messages.
And why do we pay $0.15/each again...?
Well to be fair it more like 160 bytes. It is still 8 bits per char. The 8th bit it a parity bit. It is still 8 bits per char. 7 of it is data and the 8th is for parity.
I would say add another say 10-16 bytes for over head.
Efficient might not be the right word since I'm not sure what you mean by that. You might be trying to say that the carrier's networks are not "built out" as well as carrier's networks in other countries. Which is pretty much correct when referring to both backhaul and towers.
For backhaul: Yeah, if your lines to your towers can only support a certain amount of bandwidth, and all of a sudden everybody decided to tether on this tower: you're hosed.
For towers: It's why "Antennagate" was made into such a big deal out here in the US, while the rest of the world shrugged and pondered "huh? there's an antenna problem? I got me iPhone 4 with 5 bars of signal in my steel elevator going to my fancy bullet train platform. Must be whiny american reporter."
----------
Simple to explain: Watch the traffic.
Example: If you have something sent over port 80 (http) and the headers say "Windows XP / IE 8 / x86" or "Mac OS X / Firefox 3 / ppc7400" , it's probably not a phone. Therefore, tethered.
Another example: Recent ARMv7 chips (A4 and newer, maybe the iPhone 3GS too), it was quite possible that you couldn't actually make full use of your 3G radio. Like, your phone's processor might not have been actually powerful enough to be able to push enough data or accept enough data from the radio at full speed. So you could get the peak data transfer rates on rare occasions where you're actually not doing any useful work (like a speed test), but when you're actually trying to download something or view a web page, there's no way you could have actually maxed out your connection without being backed by a real full blown laptop. So if there's more traffic than possible for your phone (which they know what you're on), then it's obviously tethered.
Actually... for LTE and HSPA+... I don't know if the latest mobile chips could max those out yet either. But that's a separate issue.
My understanding is that SMS messages are sent on the control channel so don't really use up any additional bandwidth.
If you're talking about cell tower bandwidth and electricity... they're both finite. You want more, you're going to need to install more hardware, whether it be telecom equipment or power plants.
----------
Built in tethering is allowed/disallowed based on your phone checking with your carrier to see if your plan allows for it.
iTether.app just uses your data plan and forwards data from your laptop.
No checking. It also appears (although I don't know for sure since I don't have it) that iTether.app forwards all the data through Tether's servers too, before it reaches the internet. Sounds a little shady.
even over the control channel there is still going to be over head that has to be transmitted.
Define "bandwidth"?
Traffic sent on control channels is still traffic, and therefore uses bandwidth.
More traffic == more bandwidth used.
As in, it still got sent over the air, therefore it took up some space in the air.
On the other hand, it doesn't go against your data plan's bandwidth quota. Which is an entirely different thing.
----------
Didn't Telstra completely rebuild their current network from scratch like 3 years ago? You all used to be on CDMA2000/EVDO, right? Now they shut that network down and you're all only on HSPA+?
If so, it sounds to me like they did a pretty good job of it... but it was probably obscenely expensive for the company?
I said additional bandwidth, and even italicized additional for emphasis. I read that sms messages are delayed and put into the control channel at a convenient time, into space that would otherwise go unused. So the additional cost to the carrier is nearly nothing since they are transmitting it anyway. A while ago there was a graphic that explained it, but I can't find it right now.
The articles:
They are both quoting a paragraph from Priceless: the myth of fair value (and how to take advantage of it) By William Poundstone
I am amazed by how stupid the carriers are. I do about 100 MB of tethering a month, and they're incredibly useful for me. I use a jailbreak app for this. It's the only reason I'm even considering not moving to Android, because the tethering works so well with my jailbroken iPhone and even though I only use 100 MB/ month, these are incredibly essential for my line of work. If it weren't for the ease of tethering, I'd have long moved to a more beautiful bigger display phone with 4G connection.
Does that mean that as long as we don't install any iOS updates, we're good? (Are iOS updates mandatory for continued use of Apple products?)
Wirelessly posted (iPhone Dark: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)
I now pay ¥300/month for unlimited texting. Paid $20/month for the same thing in the US when I was there.
I can't believe I willingly paid AT&T that much. Never again...
darkwolf2 said:
Sadly, it's even worse than that since a 160 english character text message consumes only 140 bytes of data. (Due to standard SMS using 7-bit encoding)
Yep... That means 1MB of data will be consumed when you send 7,489 full length text messages.
And why do we pay $0.15/each again...?
I now pay ¥300/month for unlimited texting. Paid $20/month for the same thing in the US when I was there.
I can't believe I willingly paid AT&T that much. Never again...