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Jobs Says No Tethering iPad To iPhone

tugfoigel writes "Anyone who currently owns an iPhone and was hoping they would be able to use it as a mobile Web access point for a Wi-Fi iPad just got some bad news. Reportedly, Steve Jobs has said this will not happen. Swedish blog Slashat.se claims they e-mailed Jobs directly to ask him whether or not you'd be able to tether your iPad and iPhone and received a terse 'No' in reply. According to the report, the email headers made it plausible that the reply had come from Jobs's iPhone."

7 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You get what you pay for? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're confused. This isn't about tethering something through iPad. This is about tethering iPad (the model without 3G) through iPhone. It's something that you can do with any cheapo netbook and any cheapo phone (not even smartphone).

    I don't see why anyone should be "allowing" (much less "not allowing") me to tether things the way I want, either. In fact, this kind of thing - "Unlimited mobile data plan for just $X! <small>for use with selected mobile devices with provider-supplied Web browser application only!</small>", which is so prevalent in North America, really irks me - back in my home country, I would get a proper data plan which lets me use teh tube however I see fit, without any such bullshit, for those very same $X (usually less, in fact).

  2. Forged Headers? by NiteRiderXP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is Slashdot, wake up people.
    How hard is it to forge headers, it's not like his email was signed with a cert?
    Maybe I should send a story in with fake headers and see if it gets posted...

  3. Re:It's getting ridiculous by zoid.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's easy, don't buy it.

  4. Re:You get what you pay for? by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry, but at least part of the problem is, why am I expected to buy separate data plans for each mobile device that I have? I have paid for a data plan for my phone, so why should I have to pay for an additional plan for either the iPad or the MiFi?

    That's the reason you get such a discount compared to a $60 a month 5 GB plan...

    What's the reason? Is the "unlimited" data plan for the iPhone or iPad capped under 5GB? If AT&T wanted to charge $60 for 5GB, they easily could have done that, but they chose to charge $30 for "unlimited" data. If I use a set amount of data, what difference does it make to them if some of that data passes to another device?

    Let's just be honest hear: They're charging too much and imposing arbitrary restrictions because there's minimal competition, minimal regulation, and they believe that their customers will put up with being charged for a separate plan for each and every device they own.

  5. Re:It's getting ridiculous by badasscat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are we supposed to keep paying up per device? It's highly unreasonable, specially since most people don't use two devices at the same time.

    We're going through the same thing right now with wireless telcos that we did with ISP's about 10-15 years ago. Some people probably don't remember it, others may have actually been too young to really know about it, but there was a time when the cable and phone companies considered having a router on their service as a terms of use violation. They would cut you off if they discovered it. People would actually hide their routers whenever they'd have to make a service call (I remember doing this!). They charged for internet use per connection, so to them using a router was "theft" because you could use one router for many different computers.

    Of course, today that sounds ridiculous, and ISP's even give away wireless routers. Verizon's standard DSL and FiOS modems are wireless routers.

    So hopefully in 10 years (or less), we'll be at that same point with the wireless telcos, where they realize they'll actually get more business by simplifying and letting people do what they want with their connections. And they actually will sell their service per household or subscriber, and not per device connection.

  6. Re:You get what you pay for? by rsidd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux "just works" unless you have unsupported hardware. Same as Apple -- except that a lot more hardware is supported under Linux, these days. There's a reason Apple doesn't allow third-party boxes to run OS X.

  7. Re:You get what you pay for? by tclgeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't be serious. You can't. I've used various flavors of unix for roughly three decades, and as much as I love it I just can't agree with that statement. Linux requires tweaking and knowing arcane stuff. I'm sorry, but it simply doesn't "just work". Ok, granted, you can pop in an ubuntu disk and be up and running lickety split, but "it just works" as a meme means more than it "just works". It means you can go about your task thinking more about your task than about the OS. Linux is simply not there yet.