First MAJOR headache... iPhone to Surface tethering

[CrippsCorner]

Bought my Surface into work today to show off to my colleagues

they were loving it! Until I went to go online and show them more... this was the first time I was going to try tethering with my iPhone. Done it lots of times with my girlfriend's iPad so knew it was simple as hell.

Or was it... my personal hotspot showed up fine on Surface, but it just says the connection failed. This is on both WiFi and USB. Bluetooth doesn't work either as my iPhone says the Surface is an unsupported device.

Now I've been Googling all morning because I desperately want this to work, it's pretty much a game changer for me if I can't get this working

I've read about people having problems with funny characters in their phone's name... not the case for me, it's just two simple words, without a space.

So that rules this out...

http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...al-hotspot-iphone-not-getting-connection.html

I don't think it's a Surface network card problem because it connects to my home WiFi every time, without issue. Whilst searching on here I found this as well, but this isn't a problem as device manager says every driver is up to date...

http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/...977-wifi-tether-galaxy-nexus-surface-pro.html

All 'help' on Microsoft's own site is absolutely useless. The only saving grace is I've heard you need iTunes installed to use the USB connection... I've not done this yet, but I will do when I get home. Even though, I can still access all my iPhone's images via USB without iTunes installed. Even then it's not ideal because I'd prefer a WiFi connection. Please, please help if you can! I really don't want to give up using my Surface

it does upset me how Apple stuff just works and Microsoft just can't get it right.

I was defending the choice to not include 3/4G straight from the off, but right now I'm seriously regretting that decision!

 

[lethal.industry]

try to change your wifi name to just iphone and dont connect it to your surface(USB)

 

[TeknoBlast]

I don't have an iPhone but I tether off my Lumia 810 all the time and never had an issue. Heck, I've tethered about three devices at once and all without issue. There are times I get that limited warning. What I do there is restart both the phone and tablet and then everything is back to normal.

 

[Garfield]

I'm still using an older Windows Phone 7.8 (HTC HD) for tethering with my Surface Pro. There are no Problems and all works well. I was surprised, that the phone's battery state was nearly unchanged after two hours of tethering.

 

[CrippsCorner]

try to change your wifi name to just iphone and dont connect it to your surface(USB)

No different, plus I take it you mean the iPhone's name rather than the WiFi password? As there is no such thing as a 'WiFi name' on the iPhone.

I've tried rebooting and no different. Everyone with Lumia's seems to be working, strange... I'll have to try my girlfriend's 920 and see if I get anywhere.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I'm glad I have an Android phone. It just works.

 

[lethal.industry]

yup. the iphone's name for the hotspot. same issue happened to me a few weeks ago when i got my surface.

 

[FFX]

well..

it does upset me how Apple stuff just works and Microsoft just can't get it right.

Well this is not true, and why are people spreading these lies. Have you tired using a USB-memory formatted with ntfs on a Mac? Apple makes things "work" by locking down and leaving out things they don't want to support. As you said yourself your iPhone said the Surface was an unsupported device, not the other way a round.

 

[CrippsCorner]

Okay all I'm saying is it takes less than 15 seconds to get tethering working between an iPhone and an iPad... however 8 hours on from trying to get my Surface to use a tethered connection, I'm still none the wiser

Also, see another thread I started about Skype. From Surface to iPad, does not work at all. Had to give up... FaceTime however, straight in and working perfectly! Trust me I hate admitting it, but it's true for many things.

 

[mervincm]

Okay all I'm saying is it takes less than 15 seconds to get tethering working between an iPhone and an iPad... however 8 hours on from trying to get my Surface to use a tethered connection, I'm still none the wiser

Also, see another thread I started about Skype. From Surface to iPad, does not work at all. Had to give up... FaceTime however, straight in and working perfectly! Trust me I hate admitting it, but it's true for many things.

Lots of devices have problems when accessing a hotspot configured with a complex SSID. The Iphone unfortunatetly is missing the ability to set (just) the ssid, it uses your iphone name. Just pick something simple for your iphone name. Mine is Name-iPhone5. It works perfectly every time.

 

[FFX]

Facetime is between Apple only devices, as I said supporting what they choose to support and locking down.

 

[TeknoBlast]

I can tether between my Lumia 810 and iPod Touch. No issues at when crossing Windows Phone with an Apple product. Just simply works.