Edible Apple

One of the surprising announcements to come out of yesterday’s Verizon presentation was that the forthcoming CDMA iPhone will allow users to create a personal wi-fi hotspot with their iPhones with support for up to 5 devices. Users will be able to access this feature via a Personal Hotspot setting which can currently be found under the settings menu on the CDMA iPhone running iOS 4.2.5.
 
Now comes word via iPhoneHellas that Apple is planning to offer the same feature for its GSM users (read: nearly every iPhone user on the planet) with an upcoming iOS 4.3 update.
 
But as was the case with features like MMS and tethering, whether or not iPhone owners will be able to take advantage of mobile hotspot functionality will be carrier specific. If you recall, AT&T was late to the game in offering users MMS and tethering support while iPhone users abroad had already been enjoying such functionality for months.
 
So will AT&T hop on board wi-fi hotspot creation? Well, AT&T recently stated that they’re evaluating the hotspot feature and will make a determination one way or another later on. Hmm, we’ve been down this road before.

Incidentally, Apple has reportedlyseeded betas of iOS 4.3 to developers, though the update appears to only work on the iPad, the iPhone 4 and 3GS, the Apple TV, and third and fourth gen iPod Touches. As such, it seems that the iPhone 3G and older iPod Touch models will no longer be privy to iOS updates going forward.