iPhone tethering test

So having got hold of an iPad 2 recently I decided to my put my iPhone 4’s Personal Hotspot capability to the test. So as I was chauffeured around the streets of London last night I had a solid hour and bits worth of surfing on my iPad. And it worked like a dream web pages opened nice and speedily, I streamed video from YouTube and Cnet without issue and having such a large screen with a map on it made it far better than a small Tomtom at navigating the side streets of London to get around the horrid traffic leading up to Piccadilly Circus.

In that short period I went through about only 30MB of sent and received data but the battery hit was enormous, having left home with 46% my phone was down to 16% at the end of my trip. So now I need to invest a in a good car charger as the iPod port in the car will not charge any of the iDevices that do not support firewire charging.

As always check with your service provider with regards to cost but with Vodafone charging just £5 for 500MB my non 3G iPad 2 will be getting a lot of outdoor use. And remember you can tether up to three devices via Wifi and a further two by Bluetooth. It goes without saying with that many devices data speeds will be spread extremely thin between all clients.

The only real drawback is that you cannot share a Wifi connection only a cellular data one. I have often been to hotels where you have to pay per device and it would have been nice to pay for just one device and have the others use that as a access point.

iOS 4.3 Gold Master has been seeded

As per usual Apple has seeded its latest iOS update to developers ahead of the official release. There is not much in this one, the three big ones are:

Personal hotspot which will depend on the carrier support although seems to work on Vodafone UK at the moment without having to add the tethering bolt on.

Home sharing finally Apple has brought a feature that seemed like a no brainer from day one and in typical Apple style the wait has been worth it. It is as simple as adding your Apple username and password into the home sharing section in iTunes and iOS device and allows you to stream all your music and video from your iTunes library.

Airplay which allows you to stream video from your iOS device to a Apple TV.

Along with some bug fixes and tweaks (album art seems to work again after going very wrong in that last update), nitro java script for Safari and a double vibrate for new SMS messages, there is not much to see. Now let's hope that Apple do a radical overhaul of the OS for iOS 5 which is likely to be previewed next month.

 

The future is almost here

Have a look at the new Atrix promo that Motorola have released, this is turning into one dream phone and showing that the future is almost here. Who would have though dual core on a Smartphone would happen so quickly? But it is almost here and along with a host of docking features the most impressive being the laptop dock. My Smartphone has made my laptop redundant, the fact that it is almost ten years old doesn't help its cause, but sometime when not at my desktop while lounging on the sofa or in bed a bigger screen would be nice and this super thin and light dock fits the bill just right. And it doesn't have the problem of pumping out a ridiculous amount of heat that modern laptops do.

I hate to use the term but I really do see this as a game changer, imagine in an enterprise environment where you issue employees with this Smartphone and if they need to borrow a laptop for a trip or the weekend you just give them a dock. Get a custom made thin client and you can have you office on a tiny device.

This really is one to watch and a new era in mobile tech.

iOS 4.3 brings personal hotspot to iPhone

The one interesting thing about the Verizon iPhone announcement was
the inclusion of the personal hotspot. Well looks like we will be
getting it soon as iOS 4.3 has just been released to Developers which
includes this nifty feature.

Still has to be activated on the carriers side though.

The great Data plan con

So you have a superduper Smartphone – check

You have a data plan for said phone – check

So now you have treated yourself to a tablet or laptop and want to use it out and about but wait, the mobile companies want to charge you separately for this, or if you want to use your superduper Smartphone to tether they want you to pay a separate charge. Heck AT&T in the US have what has to be the craziest plan for tethering and I have had to read several sites to make sure that I understand it properly.

First of all you have to be signed up for their DataPro plan at $25, their unlimited plan used to be $30, but this new one has a limit of 2GB.

If you want to tether then you have to stump up a further $20 and here is the real kicker, you don't get any extra bandwidth for this extra payment just the ability tether, you still have the same 2GB allowance. They are charging you twice to use the same data, unbelievable.

In the UK things a little better but not much you have to pay a tethering charge but at least you get some extra bandwidth, Vodafone currently charge £5 for 500MB.

However should we really be charged extra? Surely if my plan has a limit of 1GB I should be able to use it however I want, after all I am paying for it? Can you imagine if your broadband ISP wanted to charge you extra if you wanted to use wireless at home or charged you per device? No you can't there would be civil unrest.

Yet we let the mobile companies do this, it's crazy. Come on someone offer one data plane that I can use on my phone/tablet/laptop or any other way I want, this is long over due.

I would like to point out that this is not universal across the board, most Android phones ship with a mobile hotspot feature and can be used as a modem without a extra charge. But have a close look at the T&C's of your mobile contract and I bet you will find a clause that forbids you from using your phone as a modem.

T-Mobile make a slight U turn on their new FUP

After some uproar when T-Mobile announced a new FUP they have today slightly amended their policy to exclude existing customer, the new changes that take effect as of 1^st February will now only apply to new and upgrading customers.

Press release in full:

Changes to Mobile Internet fair use policies

T-Mobile Statement:

"On Monday 10 January 2011 we announced that, in line with the rest of the industry, T-Mobile would be reducing its Fair Use Policy for data usage to 500MB a month for all mobile phone customers. Following a further review of our policy, these changes will now be introduced from 1 February, to new and upgrading customers only - not existing customers.

There will be no change to the data packages for existing customers for the duration of their contract and we apologise for any confusion caused. The revision to the Fair Use Policy is designed to ensure an improved quality of service for all mobile internet users."

Lysa Hardy, VP, T-Mobile UK

Source T-Mobile

Sony Strikes Back

According to documents posted on the website of George Hotz and hacking group failOverflow Sony Computer Entertainment America is seeking a restraining order against those involved in hacking the Playstation 3's "technological protection measures."

Sony is using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act citing that the exploit used knowingly opened up the PS3 to piracy.

So far no one has been sued this is just a restraining order, it would appear they are more concerned with trying to eradicate this information from the web. If so this will be short lived as this rarely works especially against nerds who feel they have been scorned.

This will be a very interesting development especially considering last year's ruling on jialbreaking your iPhone which also allows you to run pirated software.