Apple to Release iOS 4.3 in March with Personal Hotspot for iPhone 4

Apple just released the beta version of iOS 4.3 to developers yesterday, and while there’s no word of its official release to the general public – the folks at Redmond Pie are reporting that the latest firmware for iPhone and iPad will be available sometime in March.

iOS 4.3 Build 8F5148b is said to bring the Personal Hotspot feature to GSM-based iPhone 4 devices. The Personal Hotspot is a feature which allows Wi-Fi tethering (utilizing cellular data) on the recently-announced CDMA-based iPhone 4 from Verizon Wireless in the US. Though Verizon’s iPhone 4 will be available by February 10th and will run on iOS 4.2.5, Apple won’t release a firmware update to existing iPhone 4 users to match with that of Verizon’s. Instead, they will be releasing iOS 4.3 (with Personal Hotspot) in March. So, that actually makes sense.



The Personal Hotspot on iOS 4.3 is confirmed to support iPhone 4 only. There’s no word if it will also support iPhone 3G and 3GS. But with the newly released iOS SDK 4.3 beta, it appears that only iPod Touch 3G, iPod Touch 4G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and the iPad are supported. There’s no software update for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G, so I guess the Personal Hotspot feature will be supported only in iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.



Anyway, we’ll let you know more once we get official word from Apple, or perhaps more evidence and proof. [via]



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