iPhone Internet Tethering: Different Methods

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iPhone internet tethering has historically been a notoriously dicey affair: until the advent of iOS 3.0, it wasn’t even possible to tether your iPhone without using one of a great many alternative apps out there. Once iOS 3.0 shipped, however, it included a way to tether your phone via USB or Bluetooth to a computer (though AT&T delayed activating the option until they had settled upon a pricing plan that worked for them), letting you enjoy the wonders of mobile Internet on your laptop.

Thankfully, as with everything Apple, the method to set up Internet tethering on your iPhone is quite simple: there’s nothing convoluted or difficult about the process, and this how-to will serve quite nicely:

1. The Official Way

1. Open settings by clicking on the grey gear on your dock.
2. Click “General”, and then click “Network” to open up the networking section of your iPhone.
3. Click “Set up Internet Tethering”, and choose either Bluetooth or USB.
4. If you don’t already have a tethering plan with your network provider, the iPhone will prompt you to contact your wireless carrier and buy one, so head over to their website or give them a ring. Once you’ve done that, reboot your iPhone and you’ll be able to tether!

Note: the method for doing this in iOS 4.3 is a little different, as it has enabled WiFi tethering. All you have to do is open “settings”, and then click on “personal hotspot”; from there you can set a password and a network name for other computers to connect!

While the official method of tethering does exactly what it purports to do (allows your phone to act as a modem) it seems to be a little lacking, feature-wise, if you’re running 4.2 or older. Most importantly, it does not allow you to share your internet connection via Wi-Fi. Though iOS 4.3 brings WiFi tethering with it, as mentioned above, there is no excuse for AT&T and Apple to have dropped the ball in this particular arena for older iOS versions. For most users, this has been solved by the update to iOS 4.3, but even that update brings its own problems: Apple has confirmed that WiFi tethering (or personal hotspot) will only be for iPhone 4 owners. 3GS owners will not be getting the update, and must stick with USB/Bluetooth internet tethering.

This would seem to be insurmountable for 3GS owners, but fortunately the limitation is not a hardware one. The 3GS is capable of WiFi tethering but for whatever reason Apple has chosen not to enable it for the 3GS. For those of us who are a bit more technically inclined, however, there is a way around this particular limitation: Jailbreaking. Jailbreaking your iPhone allows you to install non-authorized apps on your iPhone, including MyWi, a handy app that enables tethering via WiFi on your iPhone as well as bypasses the need to pay AT&T an additional tethering fee.

So for those of you more technically inclined people out there, read on to find out how to enable wireless tethering on your iPhone 4 (or 3GS!)

2. The Jailbreak Way

1) Jailbreak your iPhone.
This is a far too complicated process to go into in detail for this article; suffice it to say there are plenty of articles on the Internet as to how to jailbreak your iPhone. For iOS devices 4.0.1 and older, http://www.jailbreakme.org will work splendidly to jailbreak your device and is probably preferred for its ease of use and functionality. For newer devices, however, you’ll have to put in a bit more effort. Here is a great article with is a detailed step-by-step on how to jailbreak your iPhone 4 running 4.2.1 or later:

http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/iphone/articles/97746.aspx

Follow those instructions and free your iPhone before proceeding!

2) Install MyWi.
Once jailbroken, head over to Cydia, the alternative app store that jailbreaking installs, and search for and find “MyWi”, the program that enables wireless tethering. Install it!

3) Start MyWi.
Once installed, the MyWi application will pop up on your iPhone home screen just as if you had installed it as a regular App Store download. Click on it to open it up.

4) Enable Tethering.
Once launched, click the slide labeled “Enable Tethering” to start the wireless tethering process. There are a few options here that may be familiar to those who have wireless tethered with other devices; you can set the name of the wireless network you are creating as well as set security for the new network (which is, of course, highly recommended).

And there you have it! Your iPhone 4 / 3GS is happily jailbroken and you are free to tether your iPhone via WiFi despite the lack of in-built support for that function in iOS 4.2, or in your iPhone 3GS.