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Smartphone Tethering: A Bigger Grind Than It Needed to Be
On the freedom that cellular modems gave to consumers—and how mobile companies tried to claw it back during the iPhone era.
One of those people was digital nomad Steve Roberts, who created a device called the Winnebiko, which was essentially a Spectrum BRIDGE connected to a recumbent bike loaded with electronics. The first example I can find of a high-speed tethering-enabled phone with vendor buy-in dates to around 2005, when Verizon announced the Blackberry 7130e had tethered internet capabilities on its network in some major cities. One of the earliest and most prominent examples, called PDANet, is one of the few apps to claim a home on PalmOS, Windows Mobile, BackBerry, Android, and iPhone, which should give you an idea of how long the concept was in the ether.
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