Tie me up; or, rather, tether me, please
December 7, 2009 2:01 PM   Subscribe

I've got an HTC Magic (also known by the execrable name myTouch 3G) running Android 1.6 from T-Mobile. I also have a MacBookPro running OS 10.4.11. Does a tethering program exist that will let me use my phone to supply an internet connection for my computer? It seems that I can't use PdaNet (my computer would need to be a PC, or I would need a phone running Android 2.0). Do any other good programs exist that fit my specifications?
posted by ocherdraco to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I got root access to my phone using the Cyanogen mod and then use the "Wi-fi Tether for Root Users" app. This takes some effort to get configured, but works really well -- it's sometimes faster than my home Internet connection.
posted by miyabo at 2:13 PM on December 7, 2009


I use tetherbot on my pc. This blog post seems to confirm it works with macs too.
posted by phil at 2:34 PM on December 7, 2009


I'm with miyabo - I rooted my Android phone (CDMA HTC Hero), and use Wi-Fi Tether For Root Users. It sucks battery life amazingly fast, but it's the est way to go about it. Works fine with my OSX 10.6 system. Depending on support for your model of phone, you may even be able to use Bluetooth rather than WiFi, which will probably save battery life.

I have no experience with wired tethering with Android devices.
posted by Rendus at 2:38 PM on December 7, 2009


Another cyanogen user, and it really doesn't take that much effort at all to get it configured. Once set up, you can do the wi-fi tether, plus I'm pretty sure there's a wired option built into cyanogen nowadays, too (though I've never used it).

Caveat -- most providers don't really allow tethering, so be careful how much data you use.
posted by inigo2 at 4:56 PM on December 7, 2009


Note: CyanogenMod
Wiki with install instructions
posted by inigo2 at 4:57 PM on December 7, 2009


If you don't want to root it you can use azilink, it's working with my Macbook on a Droid running 2.0.
posted by contraption at 8:07 PM on December 7, 2009


Recent Cyanogen builds (4.2.3 and up) have USB tethering support, so the phone shows up as a USB network card with software or configuration necessary. I can't promise that OS X has drivers to support this, but it worked for me out of the box on both Windows and Linux. Also, of course, leaving the phone plugged in obviates any concerns about battery life.

If you don't want to root your phone and have access to an SSH server somewhere, you can probably hack something together using ConnectBot and the Android debugging tools to forward ports, but that's a pain in the neck and only works with programs that support a SOCKS proxy.
posted by teraflop at 8:26 PM on December 7, 2009


Response by poster: I think I'll try azilink, as I don't particularly want to root my phone at this point.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:51 PM on December 7, 2009


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