Mac Air 3G?

Does Apple have an attachment which would allow one to use 3G for Internet access (similar to the AT&T 3G service one get with the iPad) with an Mac Air?

I've not looked into using the iPhone as a hot spot; however, the ease of turning the AT&T 3G service on and off and it's cost has made it an attractive feature.

The Lenovo X220 I have been comparing with the Mac Air offers it as a built in option.

Thanks.

Mike

For the Air - I don't think Apple has a built in option for Cellular access on the current crop.

I actually had a Dell laptop with a built in card. The card failed on me twice in 3 years. After getting a few iOS devices it turned out to be better to get a personal hotspot - like a mifi.
AT&T Mobile Hotspot MiFi® 2372 - AT&T BusinessDirect® | Premier Business Center
Although the idea of having everything all in one is nice, the problem is - if you want to use multiple devices. All carriers have some kind of mifi device it's just that you mentioned AT&T. Note Verizon has a LTE Mifi available now with theoretical speeds in the 20Mbps range currently - with fallback to the ~1MBps 3G network. Sprint also has a 4G hotspot available for its WiMax network.

You could always go to a carrier and request to look at the 3G cards they have, they are usb sticks that pull in 3G data. Now you could do that, you could tether wifi from a smartphone OR you could go and look into the wifi hotspots that all the major carriers sell.

Depending on where you are, where you go, and what you do, you could decide if you wanted to get one of those from a carrier. Those are pretty good for what they do and if you aren't planning on downloading huge chunks of data they're attractive items if you have the money.

Of course if you have any questions feel free to pm me, I'd be happy to help

Thank you for the response. AT&T offers a data plan for the iPhone that turns it into a hotspot. All one has to do is turn it on, the iPhone comes with the capability. You get another 2GB/mo from AT&T for an additional $20/mo. Sounds like that would be the way to go.

Yea I know all about it, of course you could jailbreak and get the functionality for free... I'm using a Nexus 1 which gives free tethering... but it's up to you.

I am new to the Apple world and know zero about jail breaking. I guess I need to read up on it. Even so, the AT&T approach does add an additional 2GB/mo which may be useful since I could be using 2 iPads and a laptop with it. In any event, I looked at a 13" Air and a 13" Pro at Best Buy. The Air is nice and light, but somewhat dated in it's technology. I may have to put up with the extra pound or what for a few months until the next Air is released.

IvanLasston said:

For the Air - I don't think Apple has a built in option for Cellular access on the current crop.

I actually had a Dell laptop with a built in card. The card failed on me twice in 3 years. After getting a few iOS devices it turned out to be better to get a personal hotspot - like a mifi.
AT&T Mobile Hotspot MiFi® 2372 - AT&T BusinessDirect® | Premier Business Center
Although the idea of having everything all in one is nice, the problem is - if you want to use multiple devices. All carriers have some kind of mifi device it's just that you mentioned AT&T. Note Verizon has a LTE Mifi available now with theoretical speeds in the 20Mbps range currently - with fallback to the ~1MBps 3G network. Sprint also has a 4G hotspot available for its WiMax network.

Click to expand...

I bought one of these and it works great! The nice thing is you can set up a network anywhere and up to 5 devices can use it.

Exactly, the midi creates its own network - secure if you set it up right - along with all the benefits - like local data transfer, remote access/login, etc.

With the phone as a hotspot - if you are on AT&T - it is OK as you can use data and voice together. If you are on Verizon - without 4g - then you can only use data or voice. Secondly as noted there is a 2GB limit with that plan.

Note - there have been reports that AT&T is sending out mail to those with jail broken iPhones - that they have been detected tethering and if they continue to tether they are going to charge them the same fee. I read it on some forums but I am no longer with AT&T so I have no way of verifying that.

Lastly - you are using your phone battery - once that is gone no more phone calls until you recharge it.

On data cards/USB modems - I saw no benefit with these - on top of that they tend to drain battery life of your notebook much quicker. The mifis are better in that respect - they are running on their own batteries. Secondly, Sedio has made extended batteries for the 3G mifis - I have one and get 10 hours off of one charge. I now have a network solution that matches the battery life of the iPad.
3600mAh Extended Battery & Cover for Novatel MiFi 2200 - Lasts up to 3x Longer than Standard MiFi Battery! [HLI-MIFI2200XL] - $89.99 : 3Gstore.com

IvanLasston said:

Note - there have been reports that AT&T is sending out mail to those with jail broken iPhones - that they have been detected tethering and if they continue to tether they are going to charge them the same fee. I read it on some forums but I am no longer with AT&T so I have no way of verifying that.

l]

Click to expand...

This was oh users that still had unlimited data and were supposedly using this to tether to devices and use exponential amounts of data. There's no way foe any carrier to know if you have a rooted or jailbroken device without pushing an update or something* to all phones.

Of course, when your jailbroken you can't just upgrade the firmware so you'll have to wait until the next jailbroken one is out, however if you go the A Droid route and get something relatively new and hackable you can do as you please.

If you think you're going to use up all of that data whipped tethering then it would be good to go ahead and buy it, however if you're only tethering a few times a week and you don't do anything crazy like youvube videos or music (which it isn't made for anyway) then you'll be fine.

I'm not sure that there is no way for "them" to know that you are running jailbroken. For sure Apple knows what is jailbroken, that is what those shsh tags are about. Don't think that it is shared back to carriers but that is not to say it never will be. That being said, independent of being pwned, there is a way to tell what is connected to their network, and as you said, if they see over the top data usage they will look closely at what is reported being connected - when they start seeing desktop webbrowsers, torrents and various other tcp ports they will figure out quickly that you are using a tether.

How hard is it to write a network detection program? Not very - and you are talking $20/month/subscriber so just because you have done it, don't expect to keep doing it for free, forever. That being said, I've had pdanet since the palm days (early 2000s) and never abused the service, and never got a warning. In the late 2000s I got a data card and haven't needed to tether since.

IvanLasston said:

I'm not sure that there is no way for "them" to know that you are running jailbroken. For sure Apple knows what is jailbroken, that is what those shsh tags are about. Don't think that it is shared back to carriers but that is not to say it never will be. That being said, independent of being pwned, there is a way to tell what is connected to their network, and as you said, if they see over the top data usage they will look closely at what is reported being connected - when they start seeing desktop webbrowsers, torrents and various other tcp ports they will figure out quickly that you are using a tether.

How hard is it to write a network detection program? Not very - and you are talking $20/month/subscriber so just because you have done it, don't expect to keep doing it for free, forever. That being said, I've had pdanet since the palm days (early 2000s) and never abused the service, and never got a warning. In the late 2000s I got a data card and haven't needed to tether since.

Click to expand...

However, you have to remember that Jailbreaking is completely legal and there is nothing Apple nor ATT can do about it. What you do with the phone is up to you, to a certain degree of course.

Jailbreaking is frowned upon and I wouldn't turn my head if people were rejected customer service or repairs due to doing it to their device, however, ATT nor Apple can just punish ANY user for simply jailbreaking the device.

Now there are a plethora of applications out there that let you do pretty much anything BUT you can't just write a program to detect what's going on with these phones. Yes you can probably write one to filter out connections but how would you pinpoint where the connections are coming from? And what application?

Torrents don't directly equal illegal content, there are a TON of legal (and educational) torrent downloads that people use daily, ignorance hinders this and people only focus on downloading the newest Hangover movie from a local theater.

Now it all depends on what you want to do and IMO if you need the extra space, you could just as easily jailbreak and install a free tethering app AND all of the other numerous enhancements you can get. If you need more space, just use more. Going over will give you an extra 2 gigs for only 25 bucks. You'll come out even and if you don't use it all, you aren't charged for it.

Both AT&T offer wireless solutions for you laptop (regardless of the make). They both have plans that allow you to use your smart phone (iPhone or not) as a wireless hot spot or the ability to get data directly to the laptop.

The iPhone tethering plan with 2Gb would be useful for light web surfing but anything more than that would easily over run the 2Gb allowance. Both AT&T and VZW offer mobile plans for between $50 and $60/month with a 5Gb cap. Better than 2 Gb but not what one would want for real web surfing.

I think that ultimately, youshou use yourlaptop for a few days or a week exactly like you would it'd you were tethering. Use whatever program you have or need to track and see how much data you use on a given day.

Then go and map out how much that will be a month. When you find out how much you use you c an decide on what plan you should get.

I'm sorry I said torrents, it was just an example. I use torrents all the time as I am a Linux sysadmin - and it is the preferred way to download the latest ISOs. It just becomes obvious to anyone running a network who is using torrents and it is a good example - as Comcast got busted for stopping torrent communication for a while.

Jailbreaking the iPhone is an exemption to the DMCA allowed by Congress, but all Jailbreaking is not currently legal. The official line is you are allowed to break protection in the case of a phone to allow that phone onto other carriers as well as load legal 3rd party software. They also limited it to phones so Jailbreaking an iPad is still currently disallowed under DMCA.
iPad Jailbreak - DMCA Exemption Unlikely for iPad Jailbreak

I am also not arguing against jailbreaking - or using a jailbroken tether solution - my iPhone is jailbroken. I am saying that with jailbreaking you may get charged anyway for tethering, and it is something to think about before paying for MyWi or Pdanet.
Here is one of the articles talking about the letter.
AT&T Cracking Down on Unofficial iPhone Tethering & MyWi Users

Lastly - I am not saying that they are monitoring everything that you do with your phone down to Stateful Packet Inspection, but it is pretty obvious there is some threshold that AT&T is monitoring, and it may be ports, plus data usage, plus web browser ID, or some combination but obviously the higher above the radar you get, the more likely you will get one of those letters.

As baggss mentioned - I have a $60 with a 5GB cap on my Mifi. I traveled for 2.5 weeks in February using only my Mifi as my internet access. I think I used ~ 4.8GB but I had a bunch of training material that I had to download, and I was doing a lot of remote desktop. I had a laptop and my iPhone connected a lot of the time as 2 weeks of that trip was sitting at a desk - doing training for software. With the new LTE devices they have added a $80/month 10GB - which you might actually hit if you got onto an LTE network.

None of the solutions are cheap - but unless you are a really heavy user 5GB is probably the right amount if you travel a lot. If you hook up to a lot of free Wifi - then 2GB is plenty.

In case you are wondering - here is how much stuff you transmit to every website you visit.

Relevant to this thread, I just saw this on Electronista -- a 3G stick being sold totally unlocked, that features software that allows your computer to work as a personal hotspot for other devices, AND can add SDHC micro SD cards so it doubles as a storage thumb drive. For international jet-setters like myself, something to look into:

Nova Media unveils iCON 461 unlocked 3G USB stick modem | Electronista

chas_m said:

Relevant to this thread, I just saw this on Electronista -- a 3G stick being sold totally unlocked, that features software that allows your computer to work as a personal hotspot for other devices, AND can add SDHC micro SD cards so it doubles as a storage thumb drive. For international jet-setters like myself, something to look into:

Nova Media unveils iCON 461 unlocked 3G USB stick modem | Electronista

Click to expand...

does it use a micro sim or do you need and adapter?

kdyarb:

It seems to indicate that it uses a regular SIM on the web page. For *storage,* however, it needs a microSD card, but that's not relevant to the data portion.