Steve Jobs: No iPad Tethering
March 8th, 2010 at 8:47 AM - News by Jeff Gamet
Many potential iPad buyers have been hoping that they will be able to share their iPhone's wireless data connection with their new tablet, but that isn't going to happen, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs confirmed the lack of tethering support in an email response to a customer's question.
Apparently Jezper Soderlund of Sweden emailed Mr. Jobs asking whether or not the iPad offers tethering support. Mr. Jobs's response was a simple "No," according to Gizmodo.
Tethering is the process of sharing your mobile phone's wireless data connection with another device, such as a laptop, or in the the case of many hopeful consumers, the iPad.
Apple introduced the iPad tablet device in January and said that it would be available in Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi plug 3G versions. Many people speculated that they might be able to share their iPhone's 3G data connection with an iPad to save some money because the Wi-Fi plus 3G version costs US$130 more than the Wi-Fi only version.
The iPad will ship on April 3, and includes a 9.7-inch multitouch display, support for iPhone apps, music and video playback support, an ebook reader, and more.
With hopes of official tethering support dashed, soon-to-be iPad owners will likely have to turn to the jailbreak community to find a tethering solution.
2 Observer Comments
I read that the micro SIM is electrically identical to the SIM - so you should be able to “carve” the SIM card down to a micro. This seems like an opportunity for making a cutter and carrier to convert a carved-down SIM back and forth if they are actually the same…
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My favorite cheap trick from Apple regards the SIM card.
You see, one of the beauties of SIM cards is that you buy one SIM card and you can use it in whatever mobile devices you want. So you can have a beautiful iPhone that you take on business meetings and you can have a cheap phone that you take rock-climbing (eg, the kind of phone where if it get scraped or dropped or something, you don’t worry too much). All you do is take the SIM card out of your iPhone and put it in your cheap phone.
Your iPhone has a SIM card. Your iPad (optionally) has a SIM card. There’s no reason you couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to pop the SIM card from your iPhone and put it in your iPad. This is the whole raison d’etre for SIM cards!
Apple’s solution: the iPhone has a Mini SIM card. The iPad has a Micro SIM card. So the iPhone SIM card won’t fit in the iPad. So you can’t use your iPhone plan to run your iPad.