Slashdot Mirror
USB Tethering Working On iPhone 3.0 Through Hack
eviltangerine writes "Twitter user stroughtonsmith was dickering around with the carrier bundle files for his developer version of the iPhone 3.0 OS and enabled the USB tethering options. Apparently he has even been able to use his laptop to access the internet over the USB tether. MacRumors comments that while Apple has announced the availability of tethering, it hasn't hashed out the details with the mobile carriers (probably so they can charge more in fees). No word on connection speed, but here are some pictures of his phone while tethering."
Wtf is tethering?
I do that on AT&T with a Sony Ericsson W350i. Now I have the unlimited data option on my account and thus there is no charge for the tethering to my laptop with my USB cable.
It shows up in my statement every time I use the service and every bit that passes gets documented in my bill (it's darn thick).
Thus it beggars the question of why Apple hasn't activated the feature on their phone with the only carrier that is *allowed* (AT&T) to use the phone in the United States, when the carrier in question already allows this function on other phones.
Greed? Stupidity? Both?
Phoenix
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
I do it over wifi with my jailbroken iPhone and my carrier (Orange France) has not noticed (or maybe I don't do it often enough for them to care about it). Either way, I'm sure there are ways to work around the tethering fee.
Carriers only do these kinds of things because we let them. If people simply wouldn't pay the fees, then they'd stop in about 3 months. But too many people gotta have it now, so the carriers are actually *correct* in charging these fees. People will not only take it on the chin, but they'll pay for the privilege of doing so.
Your story, however, reminds me of the Motorola V710 I bought from Verizon about 4-5 years ago. It had bluetooth, but they locked it down so tight it was only useful for Bluetooth hands free. I'm sure you read about all the lawsuits (which came to nothing... Verizon offered to give you a few dollars off a new phone provided you signed up for 2 more years of service. Some deal), but hackers managed to come up with firmware that that enabled many of the profiles.
Thus, the phone became far more useful, although it "cheated" (haha) Verizon of 25 cents every time you snapped a photo, or loaded na mp3 for a ringtone, or use it in a way that they felt you shouldn't. Anyway, long story short, when I'd go into Verizon stores from one end of the country to the other with the phone, the Verizon reps would look at it and say "oh. you have one of *those* phones". And the employees were genuinely bitter and angry that people like myself had loaded the hacked firmware to make the phone useful.
Verizon has gone to much greater lengths in newer phones to prevent people from using their own property.
I'm no longer with Verizon, BTW.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
No, you got it all wrong. The phone and the laptop are connected aver wifi (adhoc network). Then I create a sock proxy on my iphone and setup firefox to go through that proxy. The data is effectively transferred over 3G or EDGE.
If you have an Android DevPhone or a "rooted" T-Mobile G1 you can use the free application aNetShare to tether via WiFi.
(Other wifi tethering applications are available, I have nothing to do with the software, just a happy user)
--- I'm sure using a computer was fun back in the 80's. *sigh*
I want to tether when there's WiFi is available. My Mac Pro doesn't have a wifi card, so using my iPhone as a USB wifi adapter would save me buying one.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
While I certainly agree with this in principle, having texting available for your teen can be extremely useful for the parent as well. I often need to reach them and they don't answer their phone. Sometimes they're out of range, sometimes they just don't want to answer.
If I text them, I know they got it and they generally respond right away. I can also text them from my computer without a cell phone and the responses come back to my email.
Then when they have it, they get inundated with texts from other kids. My son gets an order of magnitude more texts than he sends. This is difficult to control, and so I get him the unlimited plan.
You have to pick your battles with teenagers. You're not going to win every one, at least not and keep your sanity. This is not one that's worth fighting in my book. I certainly don't think I've spoiled my teenagers, but they still have entitlement issues. They usually grow out of it once they get out on their own and realize what it costs to live.
None of this excuses the price fixing the wireless providers engage in. The fact that you get charged so much for both sending and receiving a text is outrageous.
If your child isn't answering the phone when you call, you need to return the phone to the store you bought it from. Tell your child the device isn't succeeding at fulfilling the purpose for which you purchased it. If your teenager has a job and bought the phone himself / herself, then it is the child's choice of when to answer the phone.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!