iPhone Tethering App Released, Killed In 2 Hours

tjhayes writes "The iPhone App Store released an application called NetShare that allowed the iPhone to tether a laptop to the internet. It was priced at a $10 one-time fee. After being available for approximately 2 hours, the application has disappeared from the apps store. What exactly are AT&T/Apple trying to accomplish here?" They are trying to prove what is wrong with DRM, and demonstrate why hackers want to jailbreak the iPhone.

Comments

Re:What is the big deal?

[gruntled]

A non-replaceable battery on your phone is a critical issue for those of us who use our cellphones frequently for business reasons. With my current phone, if I find myself on calls for four hours during during the day, and I'm worried about the battery running out of juice later in the afternoon, I can just slap in the spare, charged battery I lug around in my bag. I guess there are external chargers you can carry around and plug your iPhone into if you needed to, but then your phone rings and you're trying to do stuff with your cell plugged in to an external battery pack and whatnot.

A non-replaceable battery is just a poor design choice for a phone. It makes it much less functional for a lot of people.

The real deal killer for me is ATT. Not with a gun to my head. I need my telephone to ring when somebody calls me, not go into voice mail. I do carry an iPod touch, which I love, but if ATT offered a data only plan for people who weren't disabled, I'd grab an iPhone and sign up for that plan right away...

Re:What is the big deal?

[dindi]

features that everyone raves about on the iPhone, but I've never used them. It doesn't even occur to me to use them because I feel like I need a PhD in computer science with a specialization in programing for imbedded devices to figure out how to use the damn features.

Hah, thank you. I own a Nokia e65, which is as expensive as an iPhone, but I simply do not feel like using these functions, because they suck with the interface provided...

I "accidentally" bought an iPhone (I had a site I had to format for iPhone so I had to get a phone), and after that I just kept the phone. Even though some features (such as net sharing with a laptop) are missing, I am still happier because YOU CAN USE THE DAMN THING .... unlike the 40 others ......

I also totally agree with your other points about Apple VS not apple, but I made the switch from Linux desktop (as I dropped Windows 10 years ago, even though I had to use it here and there)

Re:I got mine

[Richard_at_work]

Then they will be getting a letter from my lawyer regarding the £5.99 I paid for the app.

3G bandwidth is shared, right...?

[IrrepressibleMonkey]

Or at least that was my understanding.

So I want O2 (UK) to think very carefully before allowing tethering and opening up the shared resource to every possible application.

Right now I have unlimited data to my iPhone, but that will be no good to me if the network becomes saturated. (And yes, with an unlimited data plan, some users will run BitTorrent over a tethered connection just because they can.)

Apple's Hokey Cokey with the NetShare application? I can't explain that, but you can see where the conflict lies.

Allow the customers to do whatever they want, or protect the current experience for everyone.

Re:I got mine

[mysidia]

Then they get a letter about their malicious interference causing damages in the amount of $(cost of obtaining an additional wireless internet connection for the PC and ongoing subscription costs for the additional connection).

Since that is the least-costly alternative, to use of the purchased product that they illegally interfered with.

Re:Ok, I will bite and respond

[bonhomme_de_neige]

So it's something to do with the UI - well what? Obviously it fails at basic UI functionality such as copy/paste, so there must be something it does wonderfully better to make up, right? Just tell us what it is, please...

The multitouch screen and the way it's used for zoom/pan is the only thing that makes the browser useable on such a small screen (relative to other handheld devices, maybe the screen is not so small, but it is compared to any real screen that you'd be used to browsing on).

I had an SE M600i that had a functional browser, but pages were either too tiny to read or too zoomed in to see where the text you want is. Changing the zoom level required going though a menu. While it was no doubt _possible_ to get the info you wanted, in terms of ease of use if you could easily call a friend who you knew was at a computer and ask them to look it up, you'd do that instead.

The ease of panning and changing zoom levels on the iPhone, although it seems like a trite toy, is actually the only thing that makes the browsing useable - in fact, it's quite nice to use (of course, no handheld device can ever compare to a full size screen in this regard, but this is as close as it gets). Add to this the fact that Safari on the iPhone renders almost any page well, whereas say Opera Mini on Symbian is quite easy to trip up. For example, the Citibank login screen has some Javascript (for a rubbish on-screen keyboard you have to use) that makes it impossible to log in from the SE, but possible on the iPhone.

I won't lie to you, the lack of copy/paste is quite annoying. The M600i had copy/paste and I did use it a lot. Also I still can't type quite as fast on the iPhone touch screen as I could on the M600i QWERTY keyboard (but close). But it's not a deal breaker - I'll take the lack of copy paste in exchange for a useable browser. It definitely has shortcomings. But hey, you asked what it was that was better so now you know...