So I set went on a trip and thought I would try some tethering with my 3g iPhone. First, I must say the tethering works great. I was able to download and install iTunes on my pc at about 120KB/sec! I was thrilled. However, most places had WiFi so I did not really need to tether.
The problems started on the last night of my trip. I stayed at a place with no WiFi, but my 3g was at 5 bars. So I started up the tethering apps and got in. After a few hours, I noticed that my iPhone was only at 50% charge. This seemed odd to me because I was plugged into the USB port charging the whole time. I thought that perhaps the USB was not providing enough power, so I moved the charger to the wall and continued my work. Checked up on it around 30 minutes later and it was now at 40% charge. Bottom line: iPhone tethering uses more power than charging circuitry can provide! Even powered, I am able to get about 4 hours at best. Finally, I had to disable the 3g and tether EDGE which allowed me to stay about even. Now, it’s possible some other stuff was going on and I will look into this possibility. However, be warned. Tethering uses a lot of power!
For those that are interested in how the tether was performed, I will produce a guide in our guides section on it shortly.
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1. Alice Bevan–McGregor July 31st, 2008, 5:08 pm
Damn! You beat me to the post. I did the same thing while traveling, and even on EDGE, the power drained.
Tethering was stupidly easy for me: jailbreak the iPhone, run the SSH server, and use the following command line:
ssh -D 1080 root@[name].local
[name] is replaced with the name of my iPhone: raziel. Then set the SOCKS proxy in System Preferences, Network to localhost on port 1080. Done.
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2. sidkneeeeee July 31st, 2008, 7:41 pm
yes a guide would be nice, thanks. im a newbie
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3. iamse7en August 1st, 2008, 3:52 am
Screw the guide. Someone please share NetShare so it can be cracked!
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Mark Reply:
August 1st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
agreed, share!
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4. jp August 1st, 2008, 4:41 pm
yup, found the same issue here. I was charging the phone from almost Zero and got to about 25% then i decided i wanted to tether and not pay $7.95 at the airport. 10 minutes later i got a notice saying my phone was at 20% battery life, 10 minutes after that I got another notice saying it was at 10%. I really hope this netshare has the power issued fixed because this is a necessity for me.
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5. brett August 1st, 2008, 10:30 pm
I have similar results. I thought I was loosing my mind when the battery was draining while charging! Looking forward to an easier solution than SSH.
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6. edgar venzor August 7th, 2008, 3:32 am
i’ve notice the same thing too is that harmful to the battery i mean will it shorten the battery life if i keep tethering
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7. 4sevens August 31st, 2008, 8:08 pm
run insomnia and turn the phone off.
i’ve been tethered for over 24 hours and it’s still at 100%
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8. David August 31st, 2008, 9:10 pm
4sevens - I think you are doing something wrong - wi-fi surfing doesn’t work for 24 hours - let alone 3G
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9. Klasu September 15th, 2008, 12:28 pm
Couple days ago I could watch my battery drain although iphone 3g was connected to computer and did not do anything. No tethering, nothing. Within hours the phone turned itself off because of low battery. I recharged via wall charger and phone was fine the next day. At the next sync with iTunes the graph bar showed an almost empty phone. I usually have about 3 to 4 Gb of used memory now it wasn’t even 300 Mb. At the end of the sync all my contacts in Outlook 2007 were gone and put in a subfolder that I keep under Contacts - most, but not all of the names in a different sort (first names first instead last names first). I think iPhone is alive and has it’s own mind…
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