Knowing that they were missing out on yet another way to nickel and dime their customers, AT&T worked with Apple and added a hotspot feature in iOS 4.3 and above, the result is that iPhone 4 users can turn their phone into a wireless hotspot with yet another hefty monthly fee.  Verizon users can also get the privilege for a similar additional fee of $20 a month.  But for the easy nature of simply flipping a switch, or for those not comfortable with jailbreaking their phone, it’s a convenient, but costly method.   And if you like to play by the rules, well, enabling your iPhone’s hotspot feature couldn’t be easier.  One warning though, if you’re currently grandfathered into AT&Ts  unlimited data plan, once you enable the hotspot feature, you will have forfeited your all your can eat days in favor of their more limited tiered plans.

1. Talk to the right people (legal option)

Contact AT&T or Verizon and have the hot-spot feature enabled on your phone account.

2.Set up your phone

Once AT&T or Verizon has given you official sanction, you can go into your iPhone’s “General Settings”, and under “Network,” you’ll find the Hotspot switch and the ability to password protect it.  Please note, that this is for iPhone 4 customers only.  If you’re using an iPhone 3GS, you won’t have the hotspot feature available.

3. Catch a WiFi signal and a wave

Once you’ve got the phone all set up, all that’s left to do is connect the phone to your laptop or other wireless device by selecting it amidst the available WiFi signal.

That’s it for the official method.   if you’re still using an iPhone 3GS or want to use the hotspot feature “under the radar,” then there’s a simple two step method to jailbreak your phone and add hotspotting under the radar …

1. Jailbreak your phone (illegal option)

Now I know what you’re thinking … it’ll void my warranty!  It’s illegal!  It’ll mess up my phone and I won’t get it back to the way it was!  All not true.  First, it won’t void your warranty, nor will it mess up your phone to the point you can’t get it back in working order.  If you don’t like it, you can easily go into iTunes and restore it to the way it was.  It’s a good idea, though, to backup your iPhone in iTunes before you jailbreak it.  And it’s not illegal either.  According to the US Library of Congress Copyright office, it is perfectly legal to jailbreak your phone.  So fear not.  The only reason to not jailbreak your phone is that when there are updates, you have to reset your phone back to the way it was to update it.  Then you have to wait for the jailbreak tools figure that out before you can free it up again.  But these days, it’s largely a  painless process now.

Now that we got that out of the way … There are a myriad of ways to accomplish this, but by far the easiest is to use a web based app like jailbreak.me, which frees your phone with a simple, familiar slide.  Other utilities to jailbreak your phone include “redsn0w,” Pwnage Tool, but there isn’t anything as easy as Jailbreak.Me.

So, how do you do it?  Easy. a) Just navigate to  with your phone’s safari app to this page  b) tap the “Free” icon for Cydia.  The Free Icon becomes an Install icon c) tap that as well.  It will then install Cydia, the open source iPhone app store onto your phone.  d) Then, reboot your device.

2.  Open Cydia and download MyWi

MyWi is the hotspot utility that will enable you to unofficially turn your phone into a hotspot.  You can try it out for free, but if you plan to use it beyond the free trial, MyWi is about $20. You can set passwords, change your SSID settings, make security settings, etc.  Once you have MyWi installed and enabled, you will notice a blue bar at the top of your screen showing the hotspot connection active and functioning.  You will also not how much data you are using both up and down – a handy feature.

3. Surf to your heart’s content … or until you’re caught

Once you’re all set up, you can acquire your phone’s WiFi hotspot signal and you’re off to the races.  It’s a simple matter of choosing your iPhone from the list of wireless routers your gadget or laptop sees and inputting the password.

A few things though.  First, using your iPhone as a wireless hotspot will drain your phone’s battery as fast as continually using your GPS feature.  But you can get a few hours of hotspot use easy from it.  Or, you can attach your phone to your laptop via USB and not only have the security of a wired connection, but also not drain your phone battery thanks to the USB charge feature.

Additionally, wireless carriers have taken to having the iPhone call home and download usage statistics.  If they see you have been using your phone with another number or with unauthorized hotspotting they’ll simply add the charge to your bill.  The good news is, however, that it isn’t a contract fee, so if you stop using it, they won’t charge you, even if you’re paying by the rules.  But it also means you don’t have that extra bump in your data cap.

In the end, it may just be easier to get a MiFi card which will provide 3G wireless hot-spotting for a minimal fee.  They range from $20-60 a month depending on data usage and doesn’t require jailbreaking or catching the ire of your wireless carrier.

Do you pay $20 a month for AT&T’s tethering plan?  Good news.  Starting February 13th, AT&T will up the usual 2GB of allowed data to 4GB free of charge.  But, keep in mind that you’re already paying for the pro data plan, so the final price, all said and done, is $45.  For every gigabyte exceeded you’ll be charged an additional $10, which is far better than $15 for just 200mb, which is the penalty on AT&T’s lesser data plan.

This news coincides with not only the launch of the Verizon iPhone, but the soon to be launched HTC Inspire 4G, which boasts a Mobile Hotspot feature allowing you to share the device’s Internet connection via WiFi.

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Are you regretting buying a WiFi only iPad, especially after seeing the iKit from Scosche?  Well, don’t.  If you’re willing to Jailbreak your iPhone you can tether your iPad wirelessly to that handset and take advantage of its 3G connection.  Best of all you won’t have to pay the extra $130 for the 3G hardware in addition to the $30 a month for an unlimited 3G connection on the Apple tablet.

The app, MyWi, which can be bought for $10, just needs to be installed and turned on.  Keep in mind you must Jailbreak your iPhone, otherwise this app is worthless – Jailbreaking voids your Apple warranty.  Next, just search for available WiFi signals on your iPad – your iPhone should show up – and presto, you’ll be able to tether to the handset sans wires.  This means web surfing in the car, at the coffee shop or just about any where you can get a connection on your iPhone.

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Just when you thought your iPhone could liberate you and your laptop from the confines of your home, think again.  Apparently, the latest iPhone OS, 3.0 beta 2 will disable the iPhone tethering hack that required absolutely no Jailbreaking.  Obviously it was just a matter of time before Apple closed this hole, but here’s hoping that all the new features in the next iteration of OS 3.0 are far from pertinent.

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If you’re anything like me you’re not willing to Jailbreak your iPhone for the opportunity to tether the device to your computer for go any where Internet surfing.  Additionally, the folks at iPhone-Dev have yet to figure out how to Jailbreak the iPhone 3GS, although word on the street is that it’s coming any day now.

Well, fortunately there is a work around that requires no Jailbreaking or messy hacking to Tether it up.  Just follow the below instructions and you’ll be tethering with your iPhone 3GS or 3G running iPhone 3.0 software in no time flat.

1. Point your iPhone’s browser to help.benm.at
2. Scroll down to the blue button that says “Mobileconfigs’ and click it
3. Next select your country
4. Then choose your carrier
5. You’ll then be prompted with a profile install which you should do
6. Once that is complete click the iPhone’s Home button>Settings>General>Network>Internet Tethering>On
7. Select USB or Bluetooth (I choose USB)
8. Then plug your iPhone into your computer
9. Those on Macs, your Network settings screen should automatically pop up under system preferences
10. Select the iPhone (called Ethernet Adapter (en2) ) and the system will configure the DHCP info accordingly (this will probably happen after you click apply) and click Apply
11. Surf the net!

Note, we still don’t know what kind of action AT&T will take against those who perform heavy Internet surfing on a tethered iPhone, or any tethered iPhone as it’s completely unsanctioned and may either break the contractual terms or cost you some serious dough.

Update: Many people seem to be having trouble getting this to work.  If you’d like some help please email info [at] gadgetreview.com.

Update 2: A German iPhone user on T-Mobile just wrote in and said this is what he/she had to do to get it working: “you have to install the mobile config, restart, delete the config, install the config, restart and then you can use it!”.  Interesting that you should have to install it twice, but who knows and if it works so be it!

Update 3: This hack no longer works if you’ve updated your iPhone’s OS in the last 6-8 months.

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According to an Information Week source, AT&T is planning on rolling out an iPhone tethering plan sometime in the future, but was remiss to announce an official date or time frame.  On another note, they will launch MMS capabilities for the iPhone later this summer after completing system upgrades.  Apparently, this is what an AT&T spokesperson said:

We absolutely will offer MMS on iPhone 3G S in late summer once we complete some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience with MMS. These upgrades are unrelated to our 3G network. We plan to offer a tethering plan, but don’t have an announcement to make at this time on that.

In the mean while, we’ll all have to be satisfied with the iPhone 3GS, which launched today for $199 and $299 for the 16GB and 32GB capacities.

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Sprint has updated their site with specs for the highly anticipated Palm Pre.  As previously mentioned, I’m mad at Palm, so I’ve sort of turned a blind eye to them.  So what do we know now that we previously didn’t?  The built-in storage is 8GB, and when all said and done, after the OS is installed you’re left with 7.49GB.  MMS has also been confirmed in addition to the ability to use the Palm Pre as a modem via USB or Bluetooth.

[Sprint via Mobilecrunch]

According to a TUAW source close to AT&T, the service provider will unveil the highly anticipated (and long rumored) iPhone 3G tethering plan at Macworld this week.  The details are still lacking, but for now we’ll still bank on the initial rumor of $30/month and a data cap of 5GB.

Well, guess all we can do is hurry up and wait.

Michael Arrington sat down with AT&T’s Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega at the Web 2.0 summit yesterday.  During the interview Vega confirmed that iPhone 3G tethering would be come official “soon”, but didn’t make any indication of price or options.  In case you missed it, you can already tether your iPhone 3G to your laptop, you’ll just need to go ‘jailbreak’.

[MobileCrunch]

Hold up! Before you think you can run off to the App store and pick up iPhone Modem, think again. This one’s for jailbreak(ed) iPhones only, that is until Apple approves their app, which has been the ‘approval queue’ since July. To start you’ll need to install the computer app on your machine. Once that’s setup and running, open your iPhone’s settings and under WiFi, join the ‘iPhoneModem’ network. After that, launch the App on the iPhone and you’re in business. 10 seconds and you’re tethering.

Note that the App is shareware, so you’ll probably wanna fork over the $10. As usual, watch your bandwidth usage. AT&T monitors this type of stuff, and if you get caught they can shut you down.

[Modmyifone]

One of the biggest downsides to the 3G iPhone release was the lack of tethering. Now, thanks to the trusty NetShare app, you can do just that through a SOCKS5 proxy (ya, new to me too). Just download and go through the process. Sorry, pay $10 and download and go through the setup. As many folks have pointed out, watch out, because on a 3G iPhone you could suck down some serious bandwidth and get a big fat flag on your account. Yup, AT&T can cut you off if you use too much bandwidth. Course, if you ever wanna get out of your contract this might be a good method.

Update: The app has already been pulled. Big surprise.

Update 2: Ok, it’s now back and I’ve updated the below link since that changed.

NetShare is available here