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Tethering ipad using Bluetooth vs wifi with iphone

C

cujimmyusa

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 14, 2010
10
0
Trying to decide on dumping my virgin mifi $40 grandfathered unlimited data plan and go for a $50 iphone 3GS or wait for the iphone 5 and hope it looks nicer and has less glass than the iphone 4.

What is stopping me for going for the great price of the 3GS is only the fact that it will not have wifi tethering, only usb and BT tethering. Our household has 2 ipad 3G's, ipod touch and three pc laptops without BT capabilities.

Questions are:

1. How fast is BT compared to wifi and how much battery drain will be on the iphone?
2. How much will the iphone 5 be?
3. I know coverage varies, but the virgin mifi does play netflix when we are on the interstate and has good coverage for our geocaching hobby. Both of which we only use at weekends. How will they compare - BT at&t v sprint/virgin mifi?
4. Buy the 3gs or wait for 5
5. Keep mifi and the unl. Data plan and old flip phone with at&t

Love some advice, this Is doing my head in!!
 
You cannot tether the iPad to the iPhone using Bluetooth or USB. So yeah, if you want to tether from your iPhone without jailbreaking, then currently the iPhone 4 Wi-Fi Hotspot feature is the only way to do it.
 
ovrlrd said:
You cannot tether the iPad to the iPhone using Bluetooth or USB. So yeah, if you want to tether from your iPhone without jailbreaking, then currently the iPhone 4 Wi-Fi Hotspot feature is the only way to do it.
Click to expand...

If you have an iPhone 4 and a tethering plan from your carrier you can tether to your iPad via wifi or Bluetooth.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

ovrlrd said:
You cannot tether the iPad to the iPhone using Bluetooth or USB. So yeah, if you want to tether from your iPhone without jailbreaking, then currently the iPhone 4 Wi-Fi Hotspot feature is the only way to do it.
Click to expand...

Actually, you can as of iOS 4.3
My wife tethers hers to her 3GS and it works perfectly. Speed wise, Bluetooth caps out around 3mbps so its not mega fast but plenty fast enough for most tasks.
 
Sorry, but the iphone 3, 3GS and 4 can ALL tether, BUT the iphone 4 is the only one that can do wifi, they ALL can use usb and BT tethering tho. Of course you have to pay the att tether fee and data for a total of $45 to activate the function with the new iOS 4.3 update last week.
 
TheBaconKing said:
You cannot tether using Bluetooth to an iPad, it must be done by wifi.

Also if you ditch your $40 a month mifi and go to the iPhone and tethering route with AT&T you will pay $45 and be limited to 4GB data per month.

You just need to decide if you want the i4 or wait for iPhone 5. I would say the 3Gs is out of the question since it cannot wifi tether (I think)

Ignore post I was wrong about Bluetooth tethering
Click to expand...



Thank you :) I agree and still in a dilema if I would miss the wifi tether, which could cost me $150 more purchasing the iphone4 or maybe even more for the iphone5. How good is the wifi over BT, as I have not ever tethered to a phone.
 
Phil A. said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)



Actually, you can as of iOS 4.3
My wife tethers hers to her 3GS and it works perfectly. Speed wise, Bluetooth caps out around 3mbps so its not mega fast but plenty fast enough for most tasks.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected! :)
 
is there a way to bluetooth tether to other phones (not iphone) without jailbreaking yet?
 
cRuNcHiE said:
is there a way to bluetooth tether to other phones (not iphone) without jailbreaking yet?
Click to expand...

The iPad tethers using standard Bluetooth PAN services so should (in theory) work with any phone that supports PAN (personal area networking). I don't have another phone to try it on though so can't be sure
 
Phil A. said:
The iPad tethers using standard Bluetooth PAN services so should (in theory) work with any phone that supports PAN (personal area networking). I don't have another phone to try it on though so can't be sure
Click to expand...

I dont have an ipad at the mo to try with 4.3 as i'm waiting for UK release, but with Ipad1 and bluetooth to a nokia/android before it wouldn't work without Jailbreaking and using 'ibluever' from cydia.

This also seems to suggest it wont work http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3647


BUT: this thread, on post 22 says it does work! https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1113273/

Won't be getting a 3G ipad now! wifi all the way + my droid!
 
Last edited:
cRuNcHiE said:
I dont have an ipad at the mo to try with 4.3 as i'm waiting for UK release, but with Ipad1 and bluetooth to a nokia/android before it wouldn't work without Jailbreaking and using 'ibluever' from cydia.
Click to expand...
It does work as of 4.3. There is some confusion due to the new feature being undocumented by Apple.
 
Great thread,
this works perfect with a 3GS sharing 3G to an iPad over Bluetooth.
No more JB needed.

I'll list the steps incase I forget :)

Update both devices to the current firmware.

1) Turn on Personal Hotspot Bluetooth on the 3GS iPhone
2) Turn on Bluetooth on the iPad and pair with 3GS iPhone

Only have to pair once then it remembers.

Nice.
 
dranakin said:
Yes, I'm curious about this as well (battery on BT vs Wifi).
Click to expand...

On my iP4:
Power - BT uses less power. While worse then BT, wifi mode isn't too bad. Maybe 30% more power than BT (it's better then the JB wifi solutions).

Data - Wifi is faster. Much faster in some cases. In a congested 2.4Ghz area, BT topped out at 0.2mbps. In the same location wifi was running at 3.5mbps. In less congested areas BT is better. I have seen BT as high as 1.5mbps. YMMV
 
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