Verizon Wi-Fi hotspot tool coming to all iPhones?
Tethering rebranded
Apple's next big iOS release - presumably iOS 4.3 - will bring the Verizon iPhone 4's personal Wi-Fi hotspot feature to the GSM versions of the handset.
So says a Dutch telco mole cited by local iPhone fansite iPhoneclub. A Greek site makes the same claim, though there's nothing to indicate that it got the info independently of iPhoneclub, which it credits.
The ViPhone 4 runs iOS 4.2.5, a small step up from the current release, 4.2.1.
Apple likes to be neat about these things, so it's likely to unify iOS in the near future, presumably with iOS 4.3.
That said, Apple is well able to maintain multiple versions of iOS for different versions of the same hardware, so 'Verizon iOS' may remain separate from 'regular iOS' for some time yet.
In any case, the operating system is smart enough to only present to the user options that are only relevant to his or her hardware - 3GS owners don't see any FaceTime stuff, for example - that there's no guarantee the rest of us will see Personal Hotspot, as the MiFi-style feature is called, in any case.
Screenshots show the Personal Hotspot also allows a device to connect to the internet through the ViPhone over a Bluetooth connection, a feature that the current iPhone's Tethering settings provide. No one has scrolled down far enough to see if USB linkage is in there too.
But it suggests Personal Hotspot will replace Tethering in a future iOS' settings app - or at least use Tethering for wired, USB hook-ups. But whether, as is not the case now with Tethering, carriers make Personal Hotspot easy to use, remains to be seen. ®
COMMENTS
since
the removal of unlimited iphone data packages, there should be no objections, by the networks, to tethering anymore.
if you've only got 500meg, or 1gig a month, why should they care how you are using it? In fact, they are likely to make more money from people going over their limit if they can attach a laptop to it.
Lemon?
Whoops!
You forgot to say Lemon.
Come on... you have to keep your Apple-loathing frothing at the mouth bile coming...
Apple catching up with Android, catching up with Symbian
There has been personal wifi hotspot software (Joikuspot) available on Symbian for a number of years now. I also think there was something similar on Windows Phone too.
Apple catching up with Android!
Finally Apple has taken another step in matching Androids attributes. Strangely Verizon's users won't find preloaded cellco software on the phones, and are limited to downloading carrier-specific apps from Itunes.
Maybe someone will jailbreak the device.
Any news whether they will be shipping in white, yet?
CDMA is now extant in the U.S.A. and China with most carriers switching to good old GSM. Hardly worth making a CDMA/GSM version.
Getting there …
Well, I think this would at last mean iPhone had caught up in function with my three year old Windows Mobile phone - WiFi tethering is the last thing missing from my required features!
Sure, iPhone has a much higher resolution screen than my current phone, faster CPU, blah blah, but at the moment it is missing one of the core functions that I rely on, viz WiFi tethering!
Ah, hang on, there's still the problem of not being able to install any software I like on it _without_ invalidating the warranty (jailbreaking) … ah well, roll on TomTom for Android …
