Chrome OS Will Pick Up USB Tethering Support For iPhone

As it stands, Chrome OS doesn’t have the capability of tethering to an Apple device for data sharing. While one would assume that people who use Chrome OS notebooks are likely to have an Android smartphone in the first place, it certainly wouldn’t hurt if this functionality was present as well. That’s set to change with Chrome OS picking up USB tethering support for iOS devices.

It has always been possible to share an iPhone’s data on a Chromebook by creating a wireless hotspot with the device. However, this is much less reliable than a wired solution and also uses more battery.

If an iPhone or iPad is connected to a Chrome OS device right now, it shows up only as a connected USB device that doesn’t have ethernet capabilities. The Chrome OS team can get this to function if they just get the two devices talking to each other. It seems that it may not be long before that happens.

An entry has been spotted in the Chromium Gerrit by Chrome Unboxed which is titled “Enable kernel support for iPhone tethering through USB.” This more or less confirms that work is underway for this feature to be released as part of a future Chrome OS update.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: chrome os