iPhone OS 3.0 Has Tethering, It’s Just Hidden

Most of the bad news coming with the iPhone OS 3.0 release is from AT&T, the iPhone’s sole US carrier. Despite most every other iPhone carrier in the world enabling tethering and MMS today, AT&T did not, much to her users’ chagrin.

The software is there, though, and it’s taken less than a day for someone to figure out a hack (for tethering that is – MMS has been around since the first jailbreak). The guys at MacMegasite have a quick and dirty tutorial to get the thing running. In short, all it requires is that you download a carrier settings file and perform a defaults write command in a Mac terminal. Restore your phone while holding option down and you can add the carrier settings update without messing with the rest of your phone. Head to “Network” under your general settings and you should see tethering, with options for USB and Bluetooth functionality.

Early reports suggest things are a little slow, and I have yet to read of a successful PC mod for this. Still, good work from everyone involved with this (seems like MacMegasite, Gizmodo, and AppleNova for some quick credits). Have you tried this yet? Did it work for you?

Full tutorial here.