Tethering Your iPhone to Your Mac with OS 3.0

Tethering your iPhoneAlongside today's news that Apple has finally released the iPhone/iPod Touch OS 3.0 to the public (download it by opening iTunes, connecting your iPhone or iPod Touch and clicking the 'Check for Update' button), some websites are noting that it is easy to enable tethering on your iPhone, even if AT&T hasn't officially announced support for this feature.

Tethering is great for small Internet browsing sessions, or when your iPhone just isn't enough to do what you need to do (for instance, adding content to a website, or uploading a large file). But don't Tether too much: First, if a lot of people are tethering, it can slow down the network for everyone else, and second, your iPhone's battery takes a huge hit (even if charging) while you're using it's 3G signal for tethering.

[NOTE: Visual Voicemail may stop working after you follow the steps below. To get it back, simply go to the Settings app, tap on General, then Network, then Cellular Data Network; tap on the "Visual Voicemail" APN and change it from wap.cingular to acds.voicemail.]

Following the steps outlined on Mac Megasite:

  1. Make sure you've upgraded your iPhone to the 3.0 software.
  2. Download this Disk Image from Gizmodo (there's a carrier settings file inside that you'll need).
  3. Quit iTunes.
  4. Open Terminal (in Applications > Terminal).
  5. Type in the following command (without the "a.") and press Return:
    1. defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE
  6. Quit Terminal.
  7. Plug in your iPhone and open iTunes (if iTunes doesn't open automatically).
  8. Click on your iPhone in the "Devices" section in iTunes.
  9. Holding down the Option key, click "Restore."
  10. A window will pop up asking for the location of the restore file - navigate to the .ipcc file that's inside the disk image you downloaded earlier, and choose it.
  11. Wait for your iPhone's carrier settings to be updated (it will only take a few seconds).
  12. Now, your iPhone will show some sort of Terms and Agreements screen. Press OK until it goes away, then go to your iPhone's home screen.

To start Tethering from your iPhone to your Mac, just go to the iPhone's settings app, tap General, then tap Network, and finally Internet Tethering. For more on Tethering, visit Apple's website.

Further reading

mac
iphone
sharing
tether
3g
3gs
Stub
at&t
apple

Comments

I attempted to follow these instructions, and everything was going great until I got to #11. Nothing popped up on my phone. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

It may or may not show up the Terms and Agreements... however, this will not work at all if you're using a first-generation iPhone.

Tethering doesn't work; I read in the mac forums on the support site that you have to have ATT enable it and you're charged for it. The instructions on this site do not work :-(

I've done this three times now, on different iPhones (all of them 3G phones), and haven't had a problem. Perhaps you're using an original iPhone?

I'm looking at the 'About' page now under my settings and it says Version 3.0 (7A341). I'm pretty sure it's the 3G because James has the original model and I do not.

The issue may be the fact that I had to download iTerm from downloads.com to download and add the .ipcc file in iTunes because I could not and still cannot find Terminal anywhere on my computer.

I don't know but at this point I've given up on trying.

@ Corey G - You're using a Mac, right? If so, Terminal should be located in Applications > Utilities :-)
Next time we meet, maybe I could help?

You'll def have to help because Terminal wasn't there. And, yes, I'm using a MAC; the best thing every invented..... well, maybe the second best!

Thanks, Jeff.

It works awesome! I have a problem now, I can't access my voice messages. I'm not even alerted that I have voice messages. Anyway to get pass this?

Thanks,
F

@ Anonymous: please see the third paragraph at the top of this page (the "note") - it explains how to restore your voicemail. Unfortunately, once you do that, you'll have to redo the other steps again to get Tethering back.

I tried to do the following as stated above, but I do not even have a field called Visual Voice Mail in my settings, just "Cellular Data" and "MMS" APN fields. Any suggestions?

"Settings app, tap on General, then Network, then Cellular Data Network; tap on the "Visual Voicemail" APN and change it from wap.cingular to acds.voicemail."

I think this update no longer works with OS 3.1 - I have had no luck on my iPhone 3G anymore, and can't get any voicemail at all now. Ugh. Well, looks like it's time for a complete iPhone reset!

Go to Settings
General
Profile
Remove the profile
FIrmware 3.1.2, iPhone 3G
Lose tethering, regain Visual Voicemail, you pick which is more important