tethering

You've got to hand it to Steve Jobs: he cuts to the point, even if the truth hurts a bit. Over the weekend, Apple CEO Steve Jobs tersely confirmed that Apple's upcoming iPad will not be able to connect to the Internet via tethering on the iPhone. The confirmation came through email after Swedish DJ Jezper Söderlund asked if it would be possible.

Per 9 to 5 Mac, the transcript of the e-mail and its reply follows below:

Rogers Wireless announced today that they are extending their promotional offering of free tethering included with plans that include at least 1GB of monthly data for devices that are capable of tethering to a computer to share it's data connection, including the iPhone. The deal was set to expire at the end of this year, but has now been extended to end May 3rd, 2010.

One year and five days ago, AT&T Mobility President Ralph de la Vega told the world that the iPhone would be getting a tethering plan "soon". Not long after, he revised his statement, noting that it would be delayed due to necessary upgrades to the network before it could happen. When asked recently when it would happen, a spokesperson gave yet another non-answer: "We plan to offer tethering on the iPhone but have not announced a date."

You'll never stop the struggle between Apple and the people who want to hack it, so why bother complaining? As of noon today, giddy jailbreakers can take the next step and go full-on with blacksn0w, the jailbreak+unlock for the latest 05.11.07 baseband (with tethering enabled to boot). Mac and PC versions are available and it works with iPhone OS 3.1.2.

In short, the blackra1n release is alive as well, with both Mac and Windows support and the installation instructions can be found here...

After Steve Jobs' confirmation that Apple would work with AT&T to make tethering an option on the iPhone, we all had high hopes that it would soon become a reality. Unfortunately, AT&T recently corrected one popular news blog for saying that it would be ready this year.

With AT&T reversing their stance of not allowing VoIP applications to be used on their data network, many had begun hoping that they may also change their minds about not supporting tethering in the United States. Unfortunately, an AT&T spokesperson says that's not the case, and explains their reason for not enabling it yet.

Nearly three days after finally activating its long-awaited multimedia messaging service for the iPhone 3G and 3GS handsets, wireless carrier AT&T said today it was “pleased with the rollout” despite continuing user complaints on its own Facebook page. The user base might not entirely agree. According to Macworld, many iPhone users complained late into the weekend and early today about the service not working or taking too long to send a photo. The service was activated mid-day Friday nationwide, after AT&T took heat from customers in June about not having it available when the iPhone 3GS launched. The complaints began rolling in later Friday.

Recently, both Apple and AT&T found themselves named in two class action lawsuits regarding the current lack of MMS support for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. iPhone OS 3.0 includes support for MMS, but so far AT&T hasn't enabled the feature and apparently at least some iPhone owners feel that they've been misled per an article on the Mac Observer.

While we're still waiting for AT&T to announce when tethering will be available here in the U.S. (let alone how much it's going to cost), the lucky bastards fortunate people of Australia will get to sink their teeth into tethering at no extra charge, starting right when the iPhone 3GS launches there on Friday, June 26, courtesy of Vodafone. The offer is their attempt to beat the competition, Optus, which also will be carrying the 3GS.

An iPhone app site posted information from "a source" earlier today stating that AT&T would be offering tethering for an extra $55 a month on top of the standard unlimited data plan. Now AT&T is saying that the rumors are false, though they offered no numbers to replace the ones they debunked.