Pogue's Review – AT&T Hotspot/iOS 4.3 on Feb 13th?

The NYTimes’ David Pogue did a nice review of the Verizon iPhone replete with all of the typical observations: Doesn’t drop calls, can’t talk/data at same time, etc.

Here’s where it gets mildly interesting.  The initial review had the following passage (we recieved like 5 different tips with the info below cut/paste –thanks tipsters!):

The single new feature in Verizon’s iPhone is Personal Hotspot, where the iPhone becomes a Wi-Fi base station. Up to five laptops, iPod Touches or other gadgets can get online, using the phone as a glorified Internet antenna.
That’s incredibly convenient. Many other app phones have it — AT&T’s iPhone gets it on Feb. 13 — but Apple’s execution is especially nice. For example, the hot spot shuts itself off 90 seconds after the last laptop disconnects. That’s hugely important, because these personal hot spot features are merciless battery drains.

Feb 13th is a Sunday so that seems like a weird date but very strange that Pogue popped that in there, so specifically.  But it is also the date that AT&T is upping bandwidth and doling out hotspots on Android devices.

A few minutes later that was changed to “Soon”.  If AT&T gets hotspot, it will be on iOS 4.3 which means that that update is coming as well.

Computerworld also has a post titled AT&T to offer Wi-Fi tethering for iPhone but in the article AT&T says “We are working on bringing it to the iPhone, [But we have] nothing else to share at this time.”