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Here are some very easy steps for how to tether your Vista laptop to your iPhone.

First you need to get the following pieces of software:

1. NetShare – this is an iPhone application that bridges your 3G and WiFi radio on the iPhone and creates a SOCKS proxy for your PC. Apple has been publishing and removing this application over the past day, so it might not be available in the Apple Store. Sorry!
2. Proxifier Standard – this is a Windows application that routs all internet traffic on your laptop to your iPhone via the ad-hoc wireless network.

Here is how it works:

[Internet] <-> [3G <-> iPhone running NetShare] <-> Wifi <-> [SOCKS PROXY <-> Vista]

Step 1: Install NetShare and Proxifier

This is easy, install NetShare on the iPhone, and install Proxifier on your laptop.

Step 2: Create an ad hoc wireless network

On your laptop go to the Network and Sharing Center and click Set up a connection or network

Select Set up a wireless ad hoc (computer to computer) network

Give it a Network name (I use iPhone) and set the Security type to No authentication (Open) and click Save this network

note: I plan to test this later using WPA2 Personal since that is far more secure.

Now you are connected to your ad hoc network. In the future you can re-connect to this network by going to the Start Menu and clicking Connect To and then selecting iPhone.

Step 3: Connect your iPhone to the ad hoc wireless network you just created

On your iPhone go to Settings select Wi-Fi and connect to iPhone (or whatever you called the ad hoc network in step 2). Your connection should look like this:

 

Don’t worry about the IP address , we are going to use a feature called Automatic Private IP Address or Zero Config Networking which will allow iPhone and Vista to talk to each other even though they don’t have a router.

Step 4: Launch NetShare

Now that you have connected your iPhone to the iPhone ad hoc network you should launch NetShare. When you’ve done that you will be greeted with this screen:

 

Step 5: Launch and configure Proxifier

You’re almost done!

1. Now launch Proxifier and select Proxy Settings… in the Options menu.
2. Click the Add button and type the Proxy IP address in the NetShare application on the iPhone (169.254.206.139 in my case)
3. Enter Port 1080
4. Select SOCKS Version 5
5. Click OK

Step 6: You are done!

If you want to make sure that it’s working you can select the proxy entry you just created and click Check

and go to speedtest.net and measure your performance!

Step 7: Cleanup

When you are done tethering, you should do the following:

1. Disconnect from the iPhone ad hoc network
2. Select Exit from the File menu in Proxifier. If you don’t do this it will continue to run preventing your normal Wifi connection from working.

Notes

• I found that Outlook would not connect to our corporate Exchange server via HTTPS, it was trying TCP/IP. I suspect this is some kind of problem with the SOCKS proxy server. To remedy the problem I forced Outlook to use HTTPS on Slow and Fast connection.
• The iPhone will go to sleep while the NetShare app is running. You need to periodically wake it up.
• the above wireless configuration is an Open network. I plan to test this using something more secure like WPA2.

I started a wiki to collect all the Exchange iPhone issues (bugs, feature requests etc). It needs better organization and layout but it works for now (using jot spot, aka Google Sites, since I can’t find any other free hosted wiki).

The reason I set this wiki up is that I’ve used a number of Exchange Active Sync (EAS) devices in the years (Nokia N61, Palm Treo and of course Windows Mobile) and am very sensitive to not “meeting the bar”.

Since Apple doesn’t use Exchange for corporate mail, it’s hard to expect they will reach the same EAS perfection as Windows Mobile, but I hope they can at least address the bugs and issues we call out.

Special thanks go Tim Heuer for helping put this list together

Wow. It has been a long time since I’ve been so excited about a piece of technology. Perhaps when I first got an iPod nano.

This is not a review. I expect to post something more detailed later. This is a more of what I know, and what I don’t know .

note: this is my first iPhone. I have been using Windows Mobile for the past 5 years since the release of the original MPX-200. I currently own a Samsung BlackJack II and prefer the “standard” over the “professional” incarnations of Windows Mobile. I own 2 iPods, a Touch and 3G Nano and have owned 8 iPods in my life. I have used almost every PDA (Zarus, Newton, Palm Pilot, various Palms, Treo(s), PocketPC(s)).

I’d also like to point out that at least 5 people I know insisted that they were not going to get iPhone 3Gs. By Sunday night each of them were proud new owners. I expect this number to grow.

The Good

It’s an iPod!

The iPhone is a fantastic iPod. Better than the Touch for a few reasons:

1. You can double tap the round button to shortcut to the iPod app
2. You can press the mic on the headphones to pause/play or double press to skip. The touch can’t do this and as such it’s a terrible iPod since you have to touch it just to skip a song.
3. Hardware buttons for Volume. Enough said. pressing the Touch to do this sucks.

And it goes everywhere with me, which my iPod does not.

It’s a Computer

The things I can do with it are awesome. Real Web Browser. Install great applications that take full advantage of the hardware (location, wifi, touch).

Everything is consistent. It’s a thing of beauty.

You know it’s good when all the Applications consistently adhere to a set of guidelines.

It Sync’s to Exchange

Yipee, for now it works well with our corporate Exchange servers with a set of notable bugs (below under the bad).

Reading mail on this device is a thing of beauty. The rendering is much better than Windows Mobile.

The Applications

The whole experience around Apps is awesome. I’ll cover my favorite applications later. Some are just fantastic (SmugShot, OmniFocus, New York Times, Apple Remote). I have many more to try out.

A big plus is that like FireFox Add-ons there is a centralized update mechanism so that you can ensure you are using the latest version (like websites!). So long 90s era check the web site to get an update.

Location

Wow, every app pretty much supports this. It’s a phenomenal feature to have baked in. From Yelp, to Maps, to GeoTagging of Photos…

The Keyboard

Much better than I thought, although it’s hard to use the iPhone in bed since the weight is pushing it out of your hands.

The Experience

The UI is fluid, emotional. The Hardware is like artwork. It’s a joy to interact with.

The Bad

Hardware Issues

It appears Apple deprecated a common way of charging iPods and iPhones. Every recent iPod/iPhone till now has supported charging via FireWire and USB. Many after market accessories have always used FireWire interfaces to charge over the Apple Dock Connector even though Apple has suggested that they switch to USB. Well, iPhone 3G removed support for FireWire and as such my 2 car kits will not charge my iPhone. Since FireWire is 12V vs USB 5V you can see why maybe the car folks weren’t in a hurry to switch. This is a bummer.

Exchange Issues

I have noticed the following bugs with Exchange ActiveSync:

1) When you reply all to an email your own address is included in the CC line. This is not expected behavior. Email clients always strip out the recipient's address from Reply-All. See Outlook, Windows Mobile 6 (previous versions of WM had this same bug) and every other email product.

2) by default iPhone sync's all the Contacts on the Server in every folder rather than just the default Contacts folder. This behavior should be modified to only sync the default folder or should be configurable for the user. To make matters worse, the Contacts app is dog slow on iPhone.

3) The reply/forward status of a message is not sync'ed with the server. When you reply to a message on iPhone the exchange server does not have the reply flag set on the message. As such in Outlook the message does not look like there was a reply. Can’t believe they missed this one.

4) No Peak/Off Peak schedule. On my Blackjack I would sync using a schedule during peak hours and use Push off-peak. This saved my battery and I really didn’t need push during the work day since I sit in front of a computer all day.

Battery Life

Hmm, it sucks. Ok? If you want Good Battery Life here is a guide on how to make your iPhone 3G exactly like an iPhone original.

I’m trying a number of things to see if I can get it to last a day. Step 1, turn of Push email. I don’t need that anyway. Step 2, turn off Wifi. Lets hope I don’t have to since I’m addicted to controlling my Apple TV with the Remote.

Performance and Stability

Not perfect. Lots of times the iPhone hangs. Loading Contacts is glacial. Unlocking entering PIN stutters.

Applications crash. Sometimes the cause the whole iPhone to reboot (what is this, 1998?). My Windows Mobile Phone NEVER rebooted because of a crash… it just stopped working and I rebooted it!

Also today my Location services totally stopped working. No idea why. I had to reset my location settings to get it working.

Pausing/Playing audio via the headphones is buggy. Sometimes the iPhone goes dead till you wake it from Standby.

Album art on the Apple Remote is flakey at best, and you can’t control the volume of an Apple TV.

Tethering

There is of course no tethering support for the iPhone meaning I cannot connect it to my laptop to surf the web like a Windows Mobile Phone. I hope an app comes out to support this in the future.

Wow, what a long day.

It started like this:

7:30 am

Drive to the Belmont AT&T store to meet a co-worker (Andy). Waited in line for 5 minutes and aborted.

8:10 am

Arrived at Stanford Shopping Center, witnessed the 500 or so person line and aborted.

8:30 am

Arrived in the parking lot of the Mountain View AT&T store, did a U-turn an went to work.

9 am - 5 pm

Was ridiculed by co-workers who were looking for my shiny new iPhone. One co-worker (who shall remain nameless) convinced his 12 year old son to wait in line for close to 4 hours and got an iPhone! Then he called me in a meeting from his new 3G iPhone to taunt me.

6:00 pm

Arrived back at the Stanford Shopping Center. Got in line and it was moving really well. after 1 hour I had moved half way up. Then it turns out that a bunch of Apple employees went off shift so the progress in the line slowed. It took me 2 more hours to move the same distance I did in 1 hour.

Anyway, while in line I was instructed to call 611 on my phone and remove my 15% corporate discount or I would not be walking out of the store with a phone. I was told I'd have to do that or else my transaction would fail. I was also told I could call back on Monday and add it back??? WTF. Weird.

Anyway, when I got in the store I answered a bunch of questions.... yes, yes, yes, yes, 16GB Black. They only had a few yet, and had not sold out of anything yet.

A few minutes later I was $550 poorer (no worries, my iPhone fund has exactly $550 in it) because I did not qualify for a subsidy... half the price my ass.

What is interesting is that they did not unbrick or activate my phone. I just walked out with a shrink wrapped box. The minute I walked out my BlackJack II stopped working. I guess they nuked my SIM. Anyway, 10 minutes later I was home, accepted the 500th Apple EULA of the year, and have a working 3G iPhone with my corporate email and a bunch of cool apps like SmugShot.

I'll post more info when I've played around with this thing.

I feel like I did back in 6th grade when I got my first Mac! (A Mac II cx with an Apple 13inch RGB monitor).

When our daughter was born and we moved to the burbs, I longed for a product that I could use to keep lists of errands and it would tell me when I was near a store that I could purchase them at.

This is basically “location” or “context” based tasks…

Looks like OmniFocus for the iPhone will do the trick.

Can’t wait till tomorrow!!!