MyWi is widely regarded as one of the best jailbreak utilities for the iPhone, allowing users to turn their smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot and share its data connection with other devices without paying additional carrier charges. Its latest 5.5 update brings iOS 5 compatibility (finally!), faster speeds, Wi-Fi sharing, and more.
The Verizon iPad will let you create a Personal Hotspot to share your LTE connection.
With all of the questions surrounding the new iPad’s battery life and heat temperatures, users will be comforted to learn that Apple’s latest tablet can serve as a mobile LTE hotspot for a staggering 25.3 hours. That means you could technically use your iPad’s Personal Hotspot feature for more than a day on a single charge.
LTE is one of the key features available on the new iPad. All that extra speed can be a great feature for consumers and business users alike, although the ability to burn through data that quickly means that all LTE iPad users need to be more conscious of their data use than with the previous 3G iPads (the same will no doubt be true for the next iPhone).
A new study claims that most iPad Internet access (94%) still takes place over Wi-Fi networks, however. That seems like bad news for carriers and it sounds like comforting news for CIOs and IT professionals worried about unknown iPads in their companies. After all, if only 6% of iPad connections occur over 3G/4G, then most iPads in the office are using a corporate network and can be tracked and monitored to ensure data and network security.
Unfortunately digging into the actual data from the study reveals iPad users with 3G and LTE models are actually spending a lot more than 6% of their time using their cellular connection.
Earlier this week, NetZero launched a new freemium mobile broadband service using Clearwire’s WiMax 4G network. Although NetZero is the first U.S. company to launch a “free” 4G service, it isn’t going to be the last. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom has begun work on a similar service called FreedomPop that will launch this summer.
FreedomPop plans to offer more monthly data for free than NetZero’s paltry 200MB. It will also target iPhone owners as a major part of its user base.
The new iPad’s LTE option offers a lot of potential for mobile professionals, particularly the Verizon version because it will support the iOS personal hotspot feature. The plans available from both AT&T and Verizon are pretty much in line with the previous iPad 3G plans for individual customers.
While plans for individuals are fairly straightforward, the options for business can be much murkier. Both carriers offer business plans and bundles, but no two businesses have the same needs or mix of devices. If your business is considering new iPads with LTE, you’ll want to sit down with your account rep to get the details about what options you have and possibly negotiate with them to get the best deal – but doing a thorough review of your existing mobile plans first can put you in the driver’s seat during those negotiations and save your company a ton of money.
This shouldn’t take anyone by surprise, but with the new iPad going on sale on Friday at 8 a.m. at Apple Stores around the country, AT&T will also have units that they’ll be selling at their retail outlets on the same day. Don’t count on being able to easily get one, though.
At yesterday’s press conference, Apple made a big deal about how you could tether your new iPad to your laptop or other device, “if your carrier supports Personal Hotspot.”
Hey, guys, guess which of the two big U.S. carriers won’t support Personal Hotspot on the new iPad? Yup, the usual bastard: AT&T. But Verizon seemingly will. That means that if you’re an AT&T customer. there’s no way to tether your laptop to your iPad’s blistering LTE speeds… short, of course, of an A5X jailbreak.
![AT&T cracking down on jailbreak tethering? [UPDATE]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/txt2.png)
Here’s something sort of unexpected… A few people have received text messages from AT&T saying that, to tether a smartphone to a computer, it requires a tethering plan. The ones who’ve received these messages are all jailbroken, and use MyWi, a jailbroken application to allow Internet tethering over WiFi, USB, and Bluetooth, for their Internet tethering needs.
Continue reading to find out more about this.
One of the drawbacks of the cheaper, WiFi-only iPad 2 is that it doesn’t have GPS — so it can’t run any of those beautiful fullscreen navigation apps.
GPS is limited to the more expensive 3G iPad models. But if you own a GPS-enabled iPhone, you’re in luck. The WiFi-only iPad 2 inherits GPS functionality when it’s tethered to an iPhone.
New to iOS 4.3 is the Personal Hotspot feature, which turns your iPhone 4 into a 5-device mobile hotspot. You can use it with WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB. The catch? Carriers will charge an extra monthly fee on-top of your already expensive phone bill. Well, there’s a nice little jailbreak tweak called TetherMe which will instantly enable this feature. It’s been out for a while and had originally enabled iOS 3.0’s native tethering feature, but it also works for Personal Hotspot. The best part? It’s only $0.99. Continue reading on to see if it’s for you.
Read our latest...
Cult of Mac is a daily news site that follows everything Apple. Our goal is to provide timely news, insightful analysis, helpful how-tos and honest reviews. Find out more about Cult of Mac.
Published in sunny San Francisco.
All times are in PDT (GMT-8).
