Now that iOS 8.1 is out, with iOS 8.1 running on your iPhone, you can use your iPhone as a Instant Hotspot for your Mac (running Yosemite) and for your iPad or iPod Touch (also running iOS 8.1). This is one of the features of Continuity, which further integrates and connects your Mac and iOS devices. Continuity also includes Handoff, iPhone Cellular Calls, SMS Relay, and AirDrop.
When you are in an area with your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch that does not have Wi-Fi, they can connect to your phone’s personal hotspot when your iPhone is nearby. Now you do not even have to set up a personal hotspot on your iPhone and enter in the Wi-Fi Password for your personal hotspot. When you join the Wi-Fi network on your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch, the name of your phone will be listed automatically. All you have to do is join it. When you aren’t using your phone’s hotspot, your device will disconnect automatically to save battery life. Your device will remember the fact that you used your phone’s hotspot and the next time you want to go online when you do not have Wi-Fi, it automatically rejoins the hotspot.
For Instant Hotspot to work, you do need to have a 2012 or newer iMac, 2012 or newer MacBook Air, 2012 or newer MacBook Pro, 2012 or newer Mac Mini or late 2013 Mac Pro. You also need to have an iPhone or iPad running iOS 8.1 with a Lightning connector. The iPhone or iPad needs to have a cellular connection enabled that has mobile hotspot as part of the data plan. If you do not have a data plan that includes a mobile hotspot you would have to contact your carrier to add it on to your data plan and there may be additional fees for that. If your devices do not support Instant Hotspot, you can still tether your phone to your computer, iPad or iPod Touch by going into Settings and turning on Personal Hotspot on the phone. Then on your Mac and iOS device you would go to your Wi-Fi settings and join your mobile hotspot and enter in the Wi-Fi Password.
For Instant Hotspot to work, your devices need to be signed into the same iCloud account. If the whole family is using the same iCloud account it is a good idea to change the iCloud account to avoid confusion.
When using Instant Hotspot you do not need to enter in your mobile hotspot Wi-Fi password because it is set up so the devices are authorized through their iCloud account. The iPhone does not even need to be awake for this to work. To connect your Mac to your hotspot network, you click on the Wi-Fi symbol, the upside down pyramid in the upper right hand corner in the menu bar. Doing so, shows you the list of Wi-Fi networks that are available, as well as your Personal Hotspot and the signal strength of it. Selecting on your phone will automatically join the network, and you do not have to enter your password. On the Mac, the Wi-Fi symbol changes to two overlapping circles indicating that you are tethering.
To connect your iOS device to your hotspot, open up Settings and then select Wi-Fi. Doing so, shows you the list of Wi-Fi networks that are available, as well as your Personal Hotspot and the signal strength of it. Selecting on your phone will automatically join the network, and you do not have to enter your password.
The iPhone that you are using for your personal hotspot will even indicate that you are using it to connect your devices. On the lock screen, at the top of the screen there is a blue bar that goes across, with the tethering symbol of two overlapping circles. If your iPhone is being used to connect more than one device, it will be indicated above the tethering symbol. Also while using your iPhone there is a blue bar that goes across and in white letters it flashes displaying “Personal Hotspot: 1 Connection”.
That is how you set up and use Instant Hotspot.
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I have no idea why but I cannot get mine to work. Message and voice call relay works but I cannot get the IH to do it’s thing. Or Handoff. Late 2012 MBPr and iPhone 5s. Any ideas?
Mine never works either. Same issue. Everything else works, but can’t get mine to show on my mac unless I do it the “old fashioned” way. Even updated my early 2013 Retina MacBook Pro to the final public 10.10 version from the 10.10 public beta that it was on thinking there might be something small going on there that would make a difference… No luck.
For getting mine to work, I’ve logged out the iCloud account on my mac and logged in again. Than it worked.
I guess I will chime in too. This has literally never worked on any of my devices. I mostly use my iPad mini retina and my iPhone 5, both of which should be supported. Both running iOS 8.
Nothing. The only way it works is if I just leave instant hotspot turned on all the time, which is the way it has always worked, so I don’t see what the difference is.
I don’t think it’s hardware related either as all the devices can see each other and all work together normally.
bluetooth should be on?
I’m wondering if it isn’t down to the “official” tethering versus plain old tethering.
At least in Canada, you can tether to a hot spot on any phone that has hardware to support it and I’ve been doing it since iPhone 4 days, however I don’t officially have tethering in my cell package. A lot of the carriers here offer a deal that “includes tethering!” for extra money, as a means to siphon some more bucks out of your pocket. I’m pretty sure it’s the same situation in the USA as well.
There are a lot of folks out there who believe that their carrier has to turn a switch to make tethering work, and that they have to pay more for it, when in fact it’s the other way around. The carrier has to go far out of their way to stop you from tethering.
It seems at least possible that the ones that fail the Instant Hotspot thing are the ones that don’t use “official” tethering, but are still able to tether? It’s a theory anyway. :-)
It seems to be working for me on everything but my 2010 MacBook Pro, which makes sense as it doesn’t have BT 4.0. It’s hit and miss on my iPad too, but then the hotspot feature has always been a bit hit and miss on iOS devices. You sometimes meed to toggle it on and off for it to show up.
Thank you all.
Love this idea, I can get rid of my home internet……..!
Reset your iPhone’s network settings, then restart it. Mine popped up after that.
Who wrote this article?
why do you have 2800 unread emails?
What I can’t figure out is whenever I turn on my Personal Hotspot from my phone it immediately picks up a connection before I’ve even selected it from my Mac?!
What’d be nice to see is what devices are actually using the connection rather than constantly seeing a connection made.
Maybe I have to use this feature out in the wild with my MacBook since I always have WIFI at home on my iMac. I’m also curious how much battery life is wasted leaving the Personal Hotspot option enabled all the time.
Ugh! Still this is useless for my Bluetooth devices that need Internet access. This hotspot feature only works for Cellular connections.
“When you are in an area with your Mac, iPad or iPod Touch that does not have Wi-Fi, they can connect to your phone’s personal hotspot”
Really? How can something that does not have Wi-Fi connect to a hotspot? Someone needs to re-read what they wrote, or get a better editor.
So aside from not having to enter a hotspot password, this is no different than using the carrier provided hotspot that you MUST have anyway. I see no benefit to this “feature”. If this worked without having to have a personal hotspot on a cellular account….THAT would be VERY useful. This iOS/Yosemite feature is pointless & redundant otherwise. I love Apple but, nice try.
I never got this to work but it was the least the issues I have with Yosemite.
I have seen numerous reports in the apple forums about Yosemite losing internet ever 5 minutes or so on wifi and I have that issues on my mid 2012 air. Had to wipe and go back to Mav to keep a stable internet connection.
9to5 should be reporting on all the bugs in IOS8 and Yosemite.
Have not seen apple release two large changes with so much bugs.
I could never get personal hotspot to work in Yosemite unless I had the Personal Hotspot window open on my iPhone. Sometimes changing the personal hotspot password worked temporarily but would soon fail.
I finally figured out what the problem was. On my MacBook Air, if I looked under the Bluetooth menu, there were old iPhone devices listed there. I am currently using an iPhone 6 but my iPhone 5 was still listed there.
I am guessing that the problem with Personal Hotspot and Yosemite was that it was trying to use my old iPhone 5 that did not exist anymore.
I tried to delete the iPhone 5 from the bluetooth list by holding down the Option key while selecting the Bluetooth Menu and choosing Delete iPhone 5. But it would not delete.
I finally got rid of the iPhone 5 in the list by turning Bluetooth Off and then deleting com.apple.Bluetooth.plist from the /library/preferences folder.
(that is the library folder at the root of your drive and not your user library)
Then when I turned Bluetooth back on, the iPhone 5 was gone from the list and everything works.
I can now select my iPhone 6 from the Wifi menu on my MacBook Air and it connects.
And I do not need to do anything on my iPhone. In fact, if Personal Hotspot is turned off on my iPhone, it automatically turns on when I select iPhone 6 from my Wifi Menu on my MacBook Air.
Rich
Instant hotspot USED to let me use my iPhone 4S (now a 6P) with my MacBook Pro (late 2010 edition). However, now Yosemite does not find my iPhone. Bummer! They made it not work anymore. (And don’t get me started on AirPlay or Handoff!)
u need bluetooth 4.0 for using Handoff, Airdrop and Instant Hotspot!
The MBP late 2010 doens’t have BT 4.0…
You can share personal hotspot using bluetooth in iOS 8 / iOS 7 using bellow link.
http://www.howtoisolve.com/how-to-share-personal-hotspot-using-bluetooth-in-ios-8-7/
No one seems to be including the obvious in any of these Continuity/Instant Hotspot/Whatever else tutorials. YOU NEED TO HAVE BLUETOOTH TURNED ON FOR THIS TO WORK ON BOTH DEVICES.