iPhone 3.1 Update Disables Tethering 684
jole writes "The newest iPhone 3.1 update intentionally removed tethering functionality from all phones operating in networks that are not Apple partners. This is not limited to hacked or jailbroken phones, but also includes expensive 'officially supported' factory-unlocked phones. To make the problem worse, Apple has made it impossible to downgrade back to a working 3.0 version for iPhone 3GS phones."
Re:FCC may be interested (Score:3, Informative)
Tethering was never supported in the US. So the FCC would have no interest in this particular case.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is why (Score:4, Informative)
XDA Developers [xda-developers.com] is somewhere you want to look before considering purchasing any smartphone, especially one you want to toy around with.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
They changed their plan, the basic(Smartphone Basic that is) $70/month plan includes unlimited mobile-mobile now.
Re-possession of already purchased functionality (Score:4, Informative)
Ha ha, just kidding. Welcome to America.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:4, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
Does it suck? Hell yes. Is it unexpected? Hell no.
This was in all of the betas, and known about two months ago. If you were "in the know" enough to install a hacked carrier profile on your device, then you should have been following closely enough to know not to install the update. (Oh, and the Pre and it's "free" homebrew community? What about those mandatory updates that install themselves after ten days? And the data collection Palm does? Apple doesn't even do either of those.)
Throw this down at AT&T's feet, not Apple's. Apple certainly has no interest in you tethering or not. If anything, it makes their device more valuable, so they have an interest in allowing it. But clearly AT&T would rather rape you at an unspecified future date for an unspecified amount of money. All the more reason for Apple to leave AT&T as soon as possible.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:2, Informative)
There are homebrew tethering options for pretty much every unlocked phone. People were installing proxy servers on their iPhones before Apple added their tethering option.
The Sprint Simply Everything plan doesn't include tethering, if you get caught tethering you will be billed $40/month(or whatever Sprint is currently selling tethering for). Where did you get the $1000 figure from?
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.iphonewzealand.co.nz/2009/telecom/warning-for-xt-users-iphone-os-3-1-disables-tethering/ explains why your tethering stops working
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Informative)
The Nokia E90 Communicator looks like an even better phone but we're not going to see it in the USA, presumably because it has similar features. Other than the shiny Apple interface and the difficulty with making it work with a US provider, the E70 was a superior phone to the iPhone for my particular needs. If I could be guaranteed that the E90 would work with a US provider and would not have its features intentionally brain damaged by the telcos, I would drop my iPhone in a heartbeat for one.
The technology has been there for years, it's the telcos screwing things up.
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:5, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
This doesn't appear to be true. Based on what I've read, tethering is only possible now if your carrier supports it *and* Apple supports your carrier. For instance, Orange here in the UK support tethering on most plans. But Orange isn't a supported carrier for iPhone (as Apple have an exclusive deal with O2), so even if a buy an unlocked iPhone from Apple, I wouldn't be able to use it for tethering on Orange.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Did you RTFA? Apple disables tethering for companies that aren't Apple partners. It has nothing to do with whether or not the carrier allows tethering. Apple is still living in a world where they can shove an authorized provider down their customer's throats, as if they weren't doing business in Europe, where the phone and the service are supposed to be separate.
Re:Baseband locking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:3, Informative)
In the US no network (to my knowledge) allows 'free' tethering from devices, that costs extra. So your 'as long as your carries supports it' still sort of works, but if T-Mobile decided to start supporting tethering tomorrow your iPhone WILL NOT be able to do it.
But I still have my free tethering, so no big deal.
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:1, Informative)
If you had RTFA, or even the summary, you'd have seen that tethering has been disabled on ALL phones on ALL carriers, everywhere.
Re:the iSheep.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:There is no freedom on smartphones (Score:5, Informative)
Getting a root shell using the building Xterm is very easy for those that want to do it, and are a bit technically inclined. Add a certain repo, add the rootsh
Re:Uh. y'all sure its been disabled? (Score:3, Informative)
Yep, it's gone. I'm in the US, where AT&T is still dragging their feet on tethering and MMS. I didn't jailbreak my iPhone, but I did download the Network configuration file that unlocked Apple's built-in tethering capability. After reading this story, I went and checked it in the Settings; still there. I switched it on. Nothing happened. I go back into Settings, and now the tethering option is gone. They spiked it.
Tethering Isn't Disabled (Score:3, Informative)
Tethering isn't disabled. What is disabled is tethering without the carrier giving you a signed configuration bundle to use.
I've talked to a few people who use AT&T and still have tethering on their iPhones after upgrading. They got the new configuration bundle and have no problems.
Apparently, this was a request from almost all of the official carriers to prevent the iPhone from tethering without their permission (which can be had for another $20 or so per month). This was originally aimed at supported carriers, but it is also affecting unsupported carriers too.
That's what happens when you tie the hardware to the provider.
FUD (Score:4, Informative)
Re:There is no freedom on smartphones (Score:3, Informative)
You can buy the developer version of the android from google directly that comes with root access.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
You see there's this stuff called the fine print, and it explains that "unlimited" means unlimited time, as opposed to how the ISPs used to work - which was to bill $5 per hour of use and/or limit customers to XX hours per month (like Netzero does). A lot of customers make the false assumption it means unlimited gigabytes, and I suspect marketers LIKE that misinterpretation, but that isn't what your contract states - at least that's not what my Verizon contract states.
"Unlimited" means "unlimited". It indicates that there are no limits on what you can download or upload.
Re:Apple. It just...works? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is why (Score:3, Informative)
it may also be easy to rob a bank but that doesn't make it legal.
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:3, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
No, it disables tethering on all ISPs worldwide except those blessed by Apple, including those that have no problem with it.
Re:Let me be the first to say - you lie (Score:2, Informative)
AT&T:
BlackBerry Personal plus Tethering $60
How about a "PDA?"
AT&T:
PDA Personal plus Tethering3 $60.00
http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/popup/dataconnect-comp-table.jsp [att.com]
AT&T is just the first carrier I happened to look at. But I think they offer tethering for smartphones. Really expensive tetherting, but tethering.
Re:I think that (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I think that (Score:5, Informative)
"I believe that the typical iphone customer is a "look at me, I have a cool iphone" idiot."
I'm a typical iPhone user and I would like to give you another perspective. Let me take you back in time to the pre-iPhone days. I was a Verizon customer and I was constantly pissed off because every single phone I had with them would not allow me to sync ANYTHING with my Apple computer. I couldn't sync my contact, my music, my ringtones, nothing. I constantly saw all these neat little tools that allowed Windows users do this, but I was left out in the cold. I don't know if you ever had re-enter all your contacts in your phone manually, but I had to do this about 3 times and it sucked.
When the iPhone came out, I willing dumped Verizon and switched to AT&T. Not because their service is better, but because the iPhone actually allowed me to use the phone like I wanted to. Is Apple perfect? No. I think a lot of what they do is great, but things like this (disabling tethering) sucks. I'm not sure if it's completely Apple's fault. My guess is that they receive pressure from the carriers to do certain things. That's just a guess. But either way, my experience using a "phone" is about 1000% times better than what it was prior to the iPhone. Not sure if that makes me "cool" or not.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not all providers. Tethering still works fine in 3.1 on providers that support it, such as Fido/Rogers in Canada.
For example, my iPhone from Fido running 3.1 still has tethering support, just like it always has.
Tethering has only been disabled in 3.1 for providers that don't officially support the iPhone. That sucks, certainly, but let's not engage in hyperbole. If you buy a phone not supported by your carrier, you run the risk of this sort of thing. That's true with any phone, not just the iPhone.
This is a surprise how? (Score:4, Informative)
I mean, come on, seriously. ANY time you;re doing something with an Apple device that's against the EULA or the provider's terms, Apple ALLWAYS turns off that function in the next release.
Further, you were TOLD WEEKS AGO that 3.1 broke the provider file hack and that only jailbroken devices and phones runnin 3.0.1 and older would be able to maintain tethering.
The hackers will win out and fix it soon enough, that is if AT&T doesn't start enabling it now anyway as they're doing with MMS.
Plus, adding tethering to an iPhone is $25 more per month, not $60 like it is on the crackberry or the Pre.
Re:I think that (Score:2, Informative)
All of those "cool little tools" for Windows users cost far more money than they were worth. ($99 to sync my contacts to the computer? Then another $99 for a different sync program if my replacement phone wasn't the same one as my previous phone? Really? Okay, I'll pay a neighborhood kid $10/hour to do it for me and it'll be done for $20.) Your problem wasn't that there was no Apple phone. It was that you were on a non-GSM provider. You could have gone to AT&T or T-Mobile even before the iPhone was out, and stored your contacts on your SIM card, and taken them with you from phone to phone - and not had to call your provider to switch phones, either.
Yes, I'm aware that there are other things people think are advantages to the iPhone. I just wanted to point out that you could have made your experiences with cell phones 500% better just by doing some goddam research instead of waiting for Apple to hand you a ready-made solution.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
Sprint lowered the cost of their everything plan to $70/month. Big difference there.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
This is the internet. You can think before you start typing. No need to type "Um", which usually means "I'm about to say something". If you're using text to speech, you can edit out those extra filler words to make your post more clear.
Unless you used it in the "I can't believe all of you are so completely stupid" sense. In that case, you're right, nobody cares.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:1, Informative)
Nobody gives a fuck about your has-been shitty ass Windows Mobile Bullshit. We've all had or used Windows Mobile phones. I've had several. A Verizon xv6600, xv6700, several Wince2003 PDA's, and they all had one thing in common. They fucking SUCKED! Random freezes, crashes, you name it. And it always seemed to happen when you needed it most. I bought my WinMo phone because I needed a device to connect to the net on site at a moment's notice. Heh. Picture this. I'm there in the middle of work, need to look up information on a piece of hardware I'm dealing with, whip out my trusty WinMo phone and hit Pocket IE and bam! the whole phone freezes. Then when it gets over having it little cow, a helpful little balloon pops up telling me the modem was disconnected. Reboot time. There is no recovering from the modem disconnecting (whatever that means). So I reboot, will it come back up? Or will I have to pull the battery out for 5 or so minutes? Who knows? Never a dull moment with WinMo.
Really, I could go on and on but as a WinMo user, even if you are in some kind of sick abject denial, you know how it is. So now I have an Android phone. And, let me tell you, it's like when Dorothy went out of black and white and stepped into color. I never knew a phone could be as slick, intuitive and fast as this. Opera Mobile on Android is 10 times faster in Edge on T-Mobile than PIE was in EVDO on Verizon. No joke. It is over for WinMo. Only the sad fan boys like you are left holding the bag that Microsoft made.
Re:I think that (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I think that (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry, couldn't help myself. But seriously, iPhone users are going to rate it on how "pretty" it is, not how functional it is.
Re:Apple embraces Evil(tm) (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, hasn't the run gone on long enough Gerald?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1367713&cid=29413213 [slashdot.org]
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1191051&cid=27497355 [slashdot.org]
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1344921&cid=29164957 [slashdot.org]
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1178961&cid=27369683 [slashdot.org]
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=970931&cid=25092275 [slashdot.org]
and probably more, I tired of looking
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org+we're+evil.+But+our+stuff+is+sooo+good.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a [google.com]
they actually killed tethering in 3.0.1 (Score:3, Informative)
I noticed that the tethering functionality enabled by the profile from http://help.benm.at/tethering.php [help.benm.at] stopped working after my upgrade to 3.0.1
The use of this profile works on even an un-jailbroken phone.
They did it in a rather sneaky way. The UI for tethering is still there, and active. It even says 'tethered', when plugged in â" but the update causes the iPhone to ignore DHCP requests for an IP address from the external device, which then times out.
The problem was immediately resolved by revving back to the 3.0 firmware.
I tested both jailbroken and un-jailbroken, on both 3.0 and 3.0.1.
3.0 tethering works, jailbreak or not, 3.0.1 tethering does NOT work, jailbreak or not.
Shame on you Apple. If you're going to intentionally break functionality, at least be man enough not to lie about it.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:3, Informative)
It's worth noting that in Europe we don't count incoming SMS messages, only outgoing messages are paid for/deducted from our message allowance.
-- Pete.
Re:I think that (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile, my "dozens of tiny little buttons" allow me to use my phone much more productively. And they don't get crap stuck beneath them, either.
Oh, and WinMo hasn't had a desktop UI since long before it was actually called WinMo.
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:3, Informative)
Throw this down at AT&T's feet, not Apple's.
Nope, I'd definitely lay it at Apples feet.
Compare Apple to Nokia. Both allow the phones they sell to be locked down. Both do it in a similar way - the carrier loads a file into the phone. It's called the mobileconfig by Apple, I gather. The difference? If you buy a Nokia outright, nothing is locked down. That makes sense - it is your phone after all. The only way a carrier can lock a Nokia down is to sell it to you locked - presumably at a discount for the privilege.
In typical Apple fashion however, when they sell you an iPhone everything is locked down. You have to go begging for a mobileconfig from your carrier so you can use the features you thought you paid a premium. But the carrier can't produce one unless Apple has given them the cryptographic keys, and if the carrier doesn't have a business relationship with Apple (ie pays them), they can't give you one.
It is all a huge con on Apple's part. You can't really buy an unlocked iPhone outright, in the same way as you can from Nokia. Sure Apple is happy to charge you the premium for what you think is outright ownership. But you still can't use all the features on the phone unless you pay Apple addition rent for those features via the tax they put on the carrier.