Turn your iPhone into a Wifi Hotspot

No one wants to pay the telephone companies a monthly fee to allow you to use a feature that your device already has built in. That’s basically like buying a car and then paying the automaker a monthly fee to use the trunk. You shouldn’t have to! You bought it…you should get to do what you want with it!!

The Home Screen

OK…rant over. The guys over at Intelliborn seem to agree and have had one of the most popular WiFi hotspot apps available for iOS for some time now. The app is called MiWi and is only available on the Cydia app store since it’s way too cool, useful and necessary for Apple to include it in their App store. (OK, to be fair, it’s typically pressure from the carriers that pushes apps like this out of the more “legitimate” channels.) To install the app, your iOS device must first be Jailbroken (click here to find out how to jailbreak). If you haven’t jail broken yet, do it! It gives you the capability to add a ton of features your iPhone should have had from day one, but remember, it does void your warranty.

You can download the app by launching Cydia on your iPhone. From Cydia, press the Search icon and type in MyWi. Tap on the app from the list of search results and download and you’re good to go. They thoughtfully give you a 3 day free trial and if it works and you like it, it will cost you a one time fee of $19.99 to buy. That’s a wwaaayyyy better deal than paying your phone company a ridiculous monthly fee for the same service. Also, when you log into Cydia to make the purchase, it remembers your transaction so if you should install Cydia on another iPhone later, you can download the app again and won’t be charged. Very cool.

The app itself is very clean and elegantly designed. The home screen shows you your options and even asks you what you want to connect to. By default, the program has the ability to create a wifi hotspot or to plug into your computer via usb and tether that way. Another option is to tether to a device through it’s Bluetooth connection, but that option does require you to pay a few more bucks.

WiFi Hotspot Tab

On the home screen you will see three icons in a row. The first shows the wifi logo, the second is the USB icon and the third is for creating the bluetooth connection (if you purchased that option). Click on the Wifi logo and you’re off and running. It is recommended that you click on the Wifi logo at the top of the app, then click on WEP Security to make sure your hotspot is secured with a 10 digit password of your choosing. If you don’t someone near by can jump onto your hotspot and slow you down considerably.

Adjust WiFi Hotspot Security Settings

With each updated version the app becomes even more stable and easier to use. Don’t be surprised if you occassionally have to reboot the app or try to reconnect your device. Don’t worry, though…that’s a small price to pay for HotSpot-y goodness!

JailBreakMe.com

The worlds easiest and most elegant jail break tool is back.  Comex has released the much anticipated JailBreakMe.com update recently and so far there are a lot of happy Apple fanboys around the world.  The biggest feature of this update was the inclusion of the iPad 2, which up until this point was un-jailbreakable (yup, that’s totally a word).  Now even the owners of Apple’s latest and greatest tablet can partake in the Cydia goodness.

So how does it work?  On your iOS device’s browser, just go to JailBreakMe.com.  From there you will see a screen that has a single button.  Click it and you are jail broken.  It literally could not be any simpler or cleaner than that.  So far reports are that this will work on all current iOS devices but that probably won’t be the case for long as Apple usually makes it a point to crash the Jail Break party whenever it can.

And remember, jailbreaking will void your warranty but it is NOT ILLEGAL! And if you ever want to go back, you can just undo the whole processs by using iTunes to revert back and fully wiping your device. Just remember to back everything up before you do.

If the jailbreak worked for you, drop a comment below and tell us what device you did it on.