According to AT&T’s Mark Siegel, “Nothing new” concerning the hot button issue of iPhone tethering is being released today. The news cuts through fresh rumors that have surfaced showing a new tethering config page in the latest iPhone 4.0 beta 4 that was recently released to devs.
Unfortunately, it’s a load of crap for all of AT&T’s customers who wish to use such a feature legitimately. The response also doesn’t give any indication or clue as to when we can expect such a feature either. It seems Ralph de la Vega’s comments in 2009 of iPhone tethering “coming soon” were full of hot air. I understand the much needed boost in network resilience, but going on 12+ months, come on…
And yet tens of thousands of users actually interested in tethering will continue to wait. In the near term, the iPhone 4.0 hardware will hold them over, giving them new reasons to be excited again.
On a side note — Ralph de la Vega laughed at questions today regarding the iPhone, AT&T, and what will happen when AT&T loses that exclusivity over Apple’s Jesus Phone. He claimed that over 80% of AT&T iPhone users are on family or business plans and therefore would make actual jumpers pretty small. I’ll admit, he has a point. But if T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon were to get their own version of the iPhone and AT&T continues to botch iPhone tethering, I see quite a bit more switchers making the jump than AT&T cares to acknowledge.
Thoughts?
