“An iPhone application called iTether that would let iPhone users run their Mac or PC over the phone’s data connection without paying their carrier extra fees appeared in Apple’s App Store last night, to the surprise of many familiar with Apple’s review process,” Tom Krazit reports for paidContent.
“The app lasted just under 12 hours before being removed by Apple Tuesday morning, but briefly became the top-grossing app in the App Store,” Krazit reports. “The app is no longer available in the App Store, to the surprise of very few.”
Krazit reports, “In any event, those who managed to download Tether before it was pulled from the store found a cheap way to use their PC or Mac anywhere, so long as they also have their iPhone. So long as they don’t start downloading pirated HD movies over their carrier’s network (or other bandwidth-intensive files), their carriers may never know that their iPhones are skirting the rules.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, did you get a copy?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
Related article:
‘iTether’ unlimited tethering app appears in Apple’s App Store (with video) – November 29, 2011
Like AT&T, Verizon cracks down on jailbreak tethering – August 10, 2011
Jailbreakers: AT&T begins cracking down on unauthorized iPhone, iPad tethering – August 4, 2011
Got it.
Me too.
Do I feel bad? No, I’m just using the data that I’m already paying for.
As to why this got by Apple? I’m guessing that Apple is also unhappy with the carriers for over/double charging iPhone users for data we already paid for.
That’s probably why we had a repeat of the NetShare situation.
Apple’s private little protest.
Do I feel bad? No, I’m just using the data that I’m already paying for.
I actually don’t have a problem with carriers’ “no tethering” policies if they’re offering unlimited data. That offer is made with the understanding that you’ll be consuming it in phone-size chunks.
But if you have a limited plan (like I do), why should the carrier care how fast you use up the data? Once it’s gone, you’re not their problem, after all.
——RM
Was the app free? If not, will Apple still pay the developer for the copies sold?
Well, I guess the developers made out pretty well at $14 a pop.
er, $14.95.
I guess that kind of pricing does fool people into thinking it cost less than what you are paying for.
That’s why gas stations charge by the tenth of a penny. It works. (Sorry, a little off the subject)
I got it but haven’t downloaded the associated PC/Mac software yet. Where do I go to get it?
Seemed useless to me, since it only tethers to another computer. What I want is wifi hotspot to run my non-3G iPad on occasionally. (And with my 250MB data cap, it would be rarely used. Certaintly not worth paying AT&T even a dime more for tethering.)
I saw the headline on MDN this morning and immediately bought a copy.
Well, if anyone expected this one would be any different, they were naïve.
First, iOS has had tethering function for several years now. It is available out of the box on many carriers, in most countries around the world. In general, majority carriers don’t really care what you do with your data package: you can video skype all day, listen to Pandora, tether your laptop, bittorrenting 4-GB videos, your carrier won’t care, as long as you’re within your package.
Then there’s AT&T… where the tethering feature is actually artificially disabled.
So, how could anyone expect that Apple would let an app into the store, that circumvents carrier’s requirement?
American mobile consumers unfortunately don’t have a choice; virtually every carrier prohibits tethering, and only a few of them have special add-on tethering plans. And that is even on metered data plans.
True, I didn’t bother buying a copy as I can freely tether my laptop to my iPhone. My carrier even provides instructions on how to do it.
Even those of us lucky enough to download iTether from Apple are out of luck; it is impossible to download the required .dmg file for my Mac from tether.com. And I suspect on next update, I’ll find Tether missing from my apps (and presumably a $14.95 credit at the App store). Very disappointing action from Apple.
I had trouble downloading the dmg as well, most likely due to their servers being overwhelmed from a huge spike in traffic. Be patient, I was eventually successful in downloading the dmg. The company isn’t going anywhere as they also offer the same product for Android and BlackBerry.
As for Apple taking back your app, it won’t happen. It never did for NetShare. And that still works.
NetShare still works for you? Mine’s become progressively worse after each iOS update… of course, the developer can’t do updates to it so…
At this point it constantly drops the connection and it’s more a pain than it’s worth. At least for me. But it was great while it lasted!
I now have the tethering plan from AT&T. My employer pays for it. It’s so much easier, although it’s pricey.
It stopped working for a while. But with IOS 5 it seems to be working again. Though I didn’t do a lot of testing.
I was literally at rite aid with a iTunes card for the app dl and this headline pushed to
My phone!! Wtf!!
If I know this earlier I would have purchased it before it was removed. 🙁
Don’t worry, it doesn’t work
This app definitely works… it is great!
You must 1. download the app on the mac..(be patient, it takes a few tries)… 2. turn on the app on the iPhone 3. turn off your wifi on the computer… 3. Launch Safari…
🙂
4. Launch Safari…
At $15 I thought about it.
But there has been like one time I have ever wanted to tether…
If it was .99 I’d have grabbed it. $15… Pass, I knew apple wouldn’t let it stay long. But I don’t think apple can remove the app from your iOS devices though.
Did they pull the Mac dmg file already? I assume that it will be around somewhere..
I got a copy. I was in a business meeting a month ago. The hotel lobby wifi wasn’t working and I had to have access for my laptop in order to have a successful meeting. The guy I met happened to have a Sprint phone with hotspot. This app will be fantastic for future meetings. I’m thrilled.
fuck AT&T, needs to either buy them or create their own carrier…I am so goddamn sick of AT&T screwing me over.
time to spend some of that $76 billion.
could buy T-Mobile, rename it iMobile, infuse its infrastructure with its huge cash hoard and kick AT&T’s dead ass off the map…and Verizon. If is gonna be in the mobile business, they need to own their own pipes.
Well stated.
I got a copy, but it’s useless until their server recovers from the onslaught. It downloads about 20% then stops. Been like this for hours.
Stuff like this makes one wonder about Apple’s procedure and policy for App approval. I mean, Apple must have known what this App was all about when they approved it. What changed? This nonsense makes Apple look bad.
Thank for installious!
Why put it out there after it’s been approved and then snatch it away? Sorry don’t get it!!!!
In the UK, iPhone Tethering is usually part of the contract…
Is this not the case in the USA?
In my experience, Apple will refund the cost of any purchases of items pulled from the App Store.
Did this even appear in the Canada store? We’ve been able to create hotspots for well over a year. No need for a 3G iPad when you can tether Netflix on the iPad in the car makes my daughter happy!!
Be carful. If you purchased the app, you are not violating Apple’s Terms of Condition contract but you most likely are violating your carriers contract. If you get greedy and over use the tether, your carrier may take notice and automatically start charging for tethering or worse, charge you a big penalty.
I plan on using it for my special needs but not over use it. I want to stay under the radar.
according to other sites, this doesn’t use any tether ability at all. since it’s all over USB. it actually needs to be connected, the “tether” you are thinking of, sets up a wifi hotspot or connects over Bluetooth etc.
http://www.macworld.com/article/163888/2011/11/apple_approves_itether_app_for_ios.html
I have a feeling that the carriers went nuts. cause it looks like the company had discussed the app with apple and there were no problems…
this is the article I saw this morning about it, they updated it with the dev press release after it was pulled.
It works! Not bad either.
After many many tries I finally got the Mac app. I turned off wi-fi on my phone and laptop and gave it a twirl. Seems to work just fine and is pretty snappy even with 3 3G bars here.
I don’t know if this is a coincidence but here’s what I did to get a successful download. First, for hours I’ve been babysitting the download, hitting Resume in the Downloads window every time it timed out. But when it finally would finish the DMG file was corrupt. Did that FOUR times. This last time I noticed that the download was much faster and didn’t time out, but on this occasion I was ALSO trying to download some page or another on the iTether site. It seemed that if I was hitting their site for a web page it would also kick the download into giving me another hundred KB or so. Again, this may be a coincidence.
For a while the DMG file needed to download to the computer was not working right. I just tried it again and installed it on my M.B.A. and it works PERFECTLY!
I have the MDN app for my iPhone so I snatched up the app literally seconds after the headline popped up. $15? I would have paid $50 for this!
If I add tethering to my plan, AT&T will remove my unlimited bandwidth plan that I currently have which will go away by simply adding tethering and they will never allow me to add it back.
I don’t even mind that it requires a hardwire connection to my iPhone. If anything, this guarantees a more consistent data stream. This is just what the doctor ordered.
Only other thing I could have asked for is an iPhone to wifi iPad app. But I’ll settle for this.
Woo Hoo!
+1
I considered it, but I couldn’t envision when I would ever use it since I also have an ipad