Personal Hot Spot : iPhones In iOS 4.3

Confirmed: Personal Hotspot Is Baked Into The Just Released Dev Build Of iOS 4.3

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 01:48 PM PST

Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few hours after the rumor broke that the “Personal Hotspot” feature Verizon was throwing around at their iPhone announcement yesterday was in fact a standard feature of iOS 4.3, Apple has just pushed an early copy of iOS 4.3 out to developers — and sure enough, it looks like Personal Hotspot is baked right in.

The first spotting came from Twitter user TheJamesFoley

, who managed to get iOS 4.3 installed on his device in damn-near no time. His device isn’t jailbroken, and is on a GSM carrier (Three UK).. and yet there it is, clear as day: the Personal Hotspot option, chillin’ out in the settings panel like it ain’t no thing.

We’ll still have to see which carriers choose to support the feature, though it’s unclear whether the carriers can choose to support tethering/personal hotspot independently or if the two features are attached at the hip.

Are you bummed that the Verizon iPhone 4

will rock that super cool, MiFi

-esque “Personal Hot Spot

” feature, while your still-rather-shiny AT&T iPhone won’t? Don’t be too sad; it looks like that may be a temporary advantage.

According to the Boy Genius Report‘s sources, this feature is going to become standard with the release of iOS 4.3. Before you get too excited: it sounds like it’ll be enabled on a carrier-by-carrier basis based on whether the carrier wants it, much like the standard tethering feature currently is.

While AT&T undoubtedly wants this feature, they’ll probably have to wait and see how their network is doing after the Verizon-bound departures eleviate some of their network strain. Remember how long it took for AT&T to get tethering?

This rumor makes all kinds of sense. Verizon never claimed exclusivity — just that they had it while AT&T.. doesn’t yet. Remember: the iPhone wasn’t an AT&T-only thing before Verizon jumped on board; there are dozens of other carriers outside of the US who offer it as well. They’re undoubtedly going to want this feature too — and at that point, you might as well make it an option for everyone.

If the current whispers pan out, look for iOS 4.3 to hit sometime in the next month or two.