AT&T: No Tethering iPad To iPhone

Leander Kahney ()

AT&T: No Tethering iPad To iPhone

Despite offering tethering for laptops, AT&T will not allow you to tether your iPad to your iPhone.

An AT&T spokesperson told TechFlash “it won’t be possible to tether the iPhone to the iPad to share Internet access.”

Tethering your laptop to your iPhone — an option built into the upcoming iPhone 4.0 OS — will be possible via USB or Bluetooth. But the iPad’s Bluetooth profile for tethering is not enabled.

DON'T MISS
AT&T: Talk To Apple If You Want iPhone-to-iPad Tethering. We Don’t Care.

TechFlash: AT&T: No iPhone-iPad tethering

16 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in Apple, iPad, iPhone, News |

  • Stevo

    Huh? This doesn’t make any sense at all. I currently have my iPad tethered to my iPhone via MyWi. Somebody please explain…..

  • http://kc.br4dsh4w.com kc! Bradshaw

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  • Byron

    This is not news. Jobs had stated when the iPad was officially announced that you could not tether it to an iPhone on any provider in any country.

    @Stevo You can use MiWi to connect because (I’m assuming) you’re tethering using the “wifi” connection. The iPad sees it as a hotspot. Since the iPad doesn’t have a USB port, there’s no way for an iPhone to connect up to it (granted you could try to use the Camera adapter for iPad), but it wasn’t designed to do that, and there would be a block in place to stop it from connecting through bluetooth.

  • DCJ001

    If you need an explanation, you’re too stupid to understand the explanation.

  • Drizzle

    Go get yourself some Froyo and Wifi tether from your Android device and you will be all good. Nexus One does this seemlessly.

  • wrk

    Funny, cause I will be able to tether it to an Android phone no problem via wifi (and get to use a better 3G network at the same time).

  • Mat

    iPads are made to be jailbroken. This is why.

  • Alexis

    AT&T is the devil…and needs to be banished to the depths of HELL…enough said

  • Greg

    Just jailbreak your iPhone and use MyWi, that’s what I do. http://www.macdaddynews.com/?p=2784

  • ErinsDad

    AT&T CEO wants to hear from you:

    Randall Stephenson, AT&T CEO
    (sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)(direct)
    (sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)
    phone: 210-351-5401 (direct to his secretary)
    fax 210-351-3553
    alternate phone: 210-821-4105 (headquarters, press 3, ask for Mr. Stephenson's office)
    175 E. Houston
    San Antonio, TX 78205

  • charli

    using a mywi etc is not the same as tethering. those are just personal hotspot systems. the ipad is still sending and receiving via wifi.

  • Ken Taylor

    Tethering your laptop to your iPhone — an option built into the upcoming iPhone 4.0 OS

    No – this feature has been in the iPhone OS since 3.0 – the rest of the world has been tethering ever since, however, the iPad can’t tether for now – there’s no technical reason why it can’t bluetooth tether.

  • http://herschelmission.wordpress.com Dave

    Tethering was part of iPhone OS3 and I have it working perfectly well in the UK and elsewhere.

    That AT&T *still* hasn’t got round to implementing it properly is ludicrous.

  • Shock Me

    My Sprint 4G Overdrive portable WiFi hotspot just keeps getting more useful. WiFi iPads for me until ATT get their heads out of their asses.

    You could have had $40 more dollars for no work ATT, now you get nothing. Might just sign up for that $15 DataPlus too you idiots.

  • Enrico Zero

    Just jailbreak the iPhone, use MyWi and you can tether it with any other device that has Wifi built in (e.g. iPad). Full instructions at: http://www.sonoya.com/apple-ipad-wifi-3g-umts-tethering-verbinden-iphone-wlan-3gs-mywi-app-wlan-bluetooth-jailbreak-hotspotkoppeln-nutzen.html

  • MD

    Tethering with a laptop means putting the laptop in master mode for a shared wifi connection IIRC. As usual, the iPad has no such mode, it can only be the client.

    The master in a wifi sharing has to determine the default gateway and serve dhcp, advertise the SSID etc. iPad is not configured to do that and you can only do so by jail breaking. iPhone obviously does not act as the master either. Until Jobs allows the wifi to share as master (which would allow the 3G version iPad to also tether other ipads) no such luck.

    There is no USB connectivity – if the camera kit does allow that, then wow what a screwup Jobs made, lucky for us. For now I assume the ip stack is tied to the wifi only.