Yesterday, I looked at the good reasons for jailbreaking your device, and introduced Cycorder. Today, I’m going to look at an app that allows you to use the data package on your iPhone with a laptop.
(2) PdaNet
Almost all the other phones I have owned (a) will allow you to tether a computer. This means that the computer can use the phone’s data connection to access the internet. This is accomplished through either Bluetooth connection sharing, or by making the phone into something of a wireless router that the computer can connect to.
Not so with the iPhone. It’s not built-in, and the only app to allow tethering – Nullriver‘s NetShare – only made a brief appearance on the App Store before it was pulled.
Jailbreak users have had a choice of tethering methods, and I’ve tried them all – using 3proxy and Terminal, two different applications called iPhoneModem, plus another one that I can’t quite remember.
Apart from being fiddly solutions, and somewhat flaky (in my experience), these solutions only provided a SOCKS proxy. This meant only SOCKS-capable applications on the tethered computer could use the iPhone’s data connection.
But now there’s PdaNet from June Fabrics. They’re a company with an established tethering solution for PalmOS and Windows Mobile, who ported their app to iPhone OS. Their app was rejected from the App Store, so they’re giving it away free. That’s very good of them, but moreover, PdaNet is a full tethering solution, not just a SOCKS proxy. So all your computer’s applications will work.
You connect via Wifi. There’s a good setup guide available at iSmashPhone. In my testing, it works really well, and I generally get good 3G speeds.
Bear in mind, tethering may contravene your mobile contract’s Terms and Conditions. So I only use it when I have nothing else, but it has been a life saver and, in my opinion, is one of the major reasons to jailbreak your phone.
Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at Backgrounder.
Notes:
(a) This is a familiar phrase that’s rolled out on this site when talking about iPhone deficiencies…