Tethering with iPhone 4 after a jailbreak
Since writing a column titled “How to tether an iPhone 4” a few days ago, I have had a lot of requests to talk about a much less expensive alternative for jailbroken iPhones, an app called MyWi.
I have been pretty adamant about keeping my iPhone inside the walled garden, but I fully understand if you don’t want to. The tethering issue is one good reason for some to jailbreak their iPhone. After all, most of us have been paying for so-called “unlimited” data from AT&T for quite some time, but were being badly limited by the inability to tether our laptops to our iPhones; AT&T simply would not allow it. Along with the recent announcement that AT&T would finally allow tethering came the news that tethering, with no data included, would cost $20 per month and that they would prefer that you switch to a limited data plan.
This made a lot of people unhappy, and caused the users of jailbroken iPhones to snigger behind their hands. Owners of jailbroken iPhones have been using tethering for quite some time, using an app named MyWi, which is available here. There is really nothing to it. All you need to do, besides jailbreaking your phone, is download and install MyFi. Once installed, you simple use the app to turn on tethering and select how you would like to use it. You can hook up your iPhone 4 via USB cable, or you can set up a local Wi-Fi hotspot with your iPhone as the wireless router and connect to it with your other mobile devices. An earlier option to use Bluetooth seems to have disappeared.
The Wi-Fi hotspot route seems to be the way to go. You can share it with others if you like, with or without WEP security. Either way, it seems to perform well, by all accounts, and offers reasonable upload and download speeds. It does tend to drain the battery, of course, so you might want to take a charger along with you on the road.
Again, no one here is advising you to jailbreak your phone. It is no longer illegal to do so (if it ever really was) but there are downsides in terms of possible malware creeping onto your phone and general security issues. Still, we have to tell you that using MyWi on your jailbroken iPhone will cost you an initial investment of $20 to buy the app. That’s it. Going the walled garden, safer route will set you back $20 per month, and you don’t get all the features. Either way, tethering is a great tool for the road.
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