With iOS 4.3, Apple launched Personal Hotspot, a new iPhone 4 feature that enables users to share their iPhone’s 3G data connection with up to five other Internet-connected devices.
To turn on Personal Hotspot on your iPhone 4, just go to Settings > Personal Hotspot. Then on your other Internet-connected devices, find your iPhone 4 broadcast name and connect.
The name of the network (SSID) in this case will be the name of the iPhone 4, for example “Mark’s iPhone 4” will be seen on your other devices as an available network device. But what if you want to change that name? Easy!
To change the Personal Hotspot broadcast name of your iPhone 4, do the following:
1.) Plug your iPhone 4 into your computer and turn on iTunes.
2.) When the iPhone 4 shows up in iTunes on the left side under “Devices“, click the iPhone 4 once, pause, and then click again. You can now edit the name of your iPhone. Note: If you have other easy ways of editing the iPhone 4 name, you can use that!
3.) Change the name of the iPhone 4 and click select “Sync“. Done!
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
If you find a way to turn off SSID broadcasting, I would appreciate it.
Lamest tip ever. Changing the name of your phone is not a solution most people would be interested in.
What is your solution for modifying Personal Hotspot’s SSID?
lol
Well the point is there’s no way to do it, unless you change the name of your phone, which is kind of obvious. The title of the tip gets ones hopes up that there’s some other secret way to do it. I just don’t see people docking their phone and renaming it, just to change the SSID temporarily (presumably to “hide” their phone).
What we really need is an option to turn of SSID broadcasting. I’m surprised Apple didn’t offer that option right away. I turned my personal hotspot on at work and it was < 5 minutes before one of the other IT guys came over to ask me what I was doing.
The title is pretty clear as we explain how to change your SSID for Personal
Hotspot. No trickery, just straight up here’s how to do it.
Not everyone knows how to do that, as the scope of iPhone users here range
from newbie to expert. 😉
Like you said, Apple needs an option for users to change this or to turn it
off easily, instead of what is described above.
kinda strange that on my 3gs it says ‘personal hotspot’ but its just tethering renamed.
I don’t see a point with disabling SSID Broadcast since a ton of laptops can already find networks that hide their SSID….
Plus you are not going to keep it on all the time. Only when you need it like in a fast food restaurant or on the transit bus. So the chances of someone getting your password and getting on your hotspot is low.
Win
Or you could keep using MyWi… Easy to turn broadcast on or off, put in a password to connect, change broadcast strength to save batteries… Plus they gave us the option of doing it long before apple, so I think they deserve a little loyalty – especially with their recent updates to keep MyWi relevant, such as for iPad users the ability to automatically turn it on and off when needed.
Or you could keep using MyWi… Easy to turn broadcast on or off, put in a password to connect, change broadcast strength to save batteries… Plus they gave us the option of doing it long before apple, so I think they deserve a little loyalty – especially with their recent updates to keep MyWi relevant, such as for iPad users the ability to automatically turn it on and off when needed.
Mywi is using wep only for the encryption… Easily crackable within seconds if you have the correct software…
“I don’t see a point with disabling SSID Broadcast since a ton of laptops can already find networks that hide their SSID….”
For those who use the USB cable for tethering, there’s no point offering a wifi network everyone around you.
I know that SSID
I know that sniffing software can easily find a non-broadcasting network, but at least it would hide it from a casual observer finding it on their smartphone. I’m thinking of it more as a privacy thing than a security feature even, since my iPhone does have my name as its name.
It would be such a simple thing to add a “Broadcast SSID” on/off toggle, and also an “SSID Name” text field. Maybe next iOS release …
Also, Bluetooth tethering works great. I’ve been wanting that for my Wi-Fi iPad, and it’s now part of the Personal Hotspot. A side benefit, is that when using Bluetooth for your “hotstpot” (really just Bluetooth tethering) the Wi-Fi hotspot is turned off, so again there’s no SSID being broadcast.
Performance is slower with Bluetooth than Wi-Fi: I measured about 1.5 Mbps up/down, but that may be fast enough depending on the 3G speed available and what you’re doing on the ‘net.
I need to find out my iPhone’s WEP number so I can use it to connect my wireless printer to the laptop I’m using on my AT&T hot spot. So far, I’ve only been able to use the wireless printer with a USB cable, but when I had AT&T Internet service with a router, everything was wireless. Help!
The thing is, I can’t sync my phone with my laptop. How do I do change it ON MY PHONE??
Go to settings, general, informations, name
Go to settings click on personal hotspot click in the box that said wi-fi password click it and change your password. Hope it works for you, thats how I change mines.
Go to setting click on personal hotspot the click wi-fi password then change your password
dunt b a jerkca
Best way to stealthily use your PHS is by turning off wifi on both the phone and device (laptop); turning off bluetooth on the phone; and connecting via USB cable.