Apple Approves, Pulls Flashlight App with Hidden Tethering Mode

Apple has approved a flashlight application which contains a hidden function: Data tethering for the iPhone. The app, named Handy Light, appeared to be yet another flashlight app, but by working through some amusing network settings and then selecting the colors in the app in the right order, it lets iPhone users share cellular internet connection with another wireless device. Predictably the app has already disappeared from the store.

Handy Light is from developer Nick Lee, and cost just $1 in the App Store. You may remember the $10 Netshare, which did the same thing, and suffered the same fate. Why would you want an app to let you tether the iPhone, when AT&T has finally offered official tethering to its users? Because AT&T’s version costs $20 per month extra, and can only be used with the new, crippled 2GB per month data plans. Those holding onto their old unlimited plans are shut out.

To use the app, you need to create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network on your computer and connect to it with the iPhone. Then, you need to configure the SOCKS proxy on your computer (changing the IP address to 13.37.13.37, ho ho). After this, you hit the secret light-sequence combo in Handy Light and you’re good to go. Sure, its inelegant, but it is (or was) also cheap. If you managed to get ahold of it while it was still on the store, it should also work with your iPad.

Full instructions for Handy Light, should you have somehow downloaded it and not actually realized its hidden dark side, you can find videos all over YouTube (just search for “handy light”) or you can read the step-by-step at App Shopper. Anyone else will have to do it the old-fashioned way and jailbreak their iPhone.

Handy Light: Tethering App Camouflaged as Flashlight [App Shopper via Macworld]

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