And you don’t have to have root access!

OK, so how does it work. There’s two parts. One on the PC (or Mac…) and one on the phone. The phone bit is easy thanks to the man behind Proxoid a proxy App for Android. It’s free and available in the Marketplace. Also it’s a tiny download and has almost zero configuration! The PC bit requires the Android SDK, which is a free download from Google. Here are the instructions:

Phone Setup

1. Get “Proxoid” from the marketplace (market://search?q=proxoid from your phone or use the QR code)
2. Enable USB Debugging from Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging
3. Run Proxoid and connect your phone to your PC by USB.
4. (optional) Choose the port you want to use (default: 8080)

PC Setup

These steps are pretty generic, as they will be different for different operating systems. I’ll give full instructions for Linux Mint 8 (the distor I am using) which should work for most Ubuntu/Debian type systems.

1. Download Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
2. Extract it somewhere.
3. Start the ADB server (more code below)
4. Start the port forwarding.
5. Change your network proxy

So on Mint that goes along the lines of:

That will bring up the network proxy setup. I have a “location” set for the proxy which is a SOCKS Proxy at “localhost” on port 8080 (or whichever yort u choose).

Open you’re browser and bingo Internet over 3G – try http://whatismyip.com to check you’re not on your usual IP address!

As the SOCKS proxy pretty much only works for HTTP and web based traffic you might want to use FoxyProxy for Firefox which allows you to change proxy settings quickly and easily. Definitely a good idea for windows users, not sure how easy it is on a Mac. Also I wrapped the ADB commands into a single script that I can run to start the tethering.

There you go. Tethered 3G internet access for Android phones!

So far not free and non-jailbroken way to do this on an iPhone (please someone prove me wrong!)…

UPDATE: 15th May 2010 I have since found that Proxoid doesn’t always work for me. However the same effect can be achieved (and more securely) using ConnectBot (or any other SSH client supporting Dynamic Port Forwarding) to setup a SOCKS proxy SSH tunnel.

UPDATE: 31st August 2010 I have now replaced the G1 with an HTC Wildfire, which tethers simply as an option when you connect by USB – no configuration necessary, my laptop just recognised it as an USB Ethernet interface. Easy!.

In the red corner, the slick-as-you-like, shiny, fashionable, Apple iPhone.

In the blue corner, the open-source, all-your-data-are-belong-to-us, Google G1.

I’ll save the theatrics as you know from the title that I went for the G1. But the pros-cons weighting was a difficult process with many factors. However me being me, the main one and the one that rules them all was price in the end. So lets make this all about the Google G1, and in order to falsely encourage you to thinks it’s great I’ll start with the cons.

Why the iPhone is better.

• One hyphenated word, multi-touch. That’s what makes the iPhone so appealing. The user interface instantly becomes more intuitive and fun to use. (Of cours you can enable the G1 for multi-touch, the device is capable)
• Shinyness: the iPhone is pretty, and you will look pretty using it (YMMV).
• iTunes integration and the App Store. iTunes is not bad, certainly easy to sync your multimedia, and the app store has far more applications than the Android Marketplace (although I suspect this will even out in time)
• Native Video playback, but you need an app from the Marketplace for the G1.

Why the Google G1 is better

• Google Integration: Wow, this is cool. I give it my Google account details when the phone starts up. After about 40 seconds I have my email/calendar/address book all sync on my phone. I obvious need to do some adjustment as I have never used the GMail contacts for phone numbers, so I log on to my PC and create a new contacts group to be sync’d called “Phonebook” and add all the contacts I have phone numbers for. Teh tell my phone to Sync this group and voila! they all appear on my phone, beautiful.
• The Marketplace. I haven’t used the App Store to any great extent not owning an iPhone, but I do like the Marketplace and the way the Apps install. Each one tells you exactly what the program will have access to on your phone and so you can decide if you want your new “alarm clock” to be able to “dial phone numbers” or “enable GPS” or “read and write to your contacts”. Very nice little security feature given that so many people write apps.
• The status bar. The iPhone has a status bar, but the G1 implementation is so smooth, allowing you to “grab” the status bar to reveal more detailed info on each of the notifications. Sounds simple, but it really works and is very user-friendly.
• Full QWERTY keyboard – this might not seem a thing, and iPhone users do love their onscreen keyboard, but I like a real keyboard and the one on the G1 is pretty good.
• Price. The killer, the iPhone is only O2 and the G1 only T-Mobile. The cheapest packages from each one are £35 per month (18 Month Contract) from O2 and £20 per month (18 Month Contract). The phone coasts about the same in each case. So to go O2 would cost an extra £15×18 = £270!

I’ve been with O2 since 1999, but am now on T-Mobile, after an amusing conversation with their “retentions” team:

O2: “So is there a particular reason your leaving O₂?”
Me: “Well, I want a smartphone and the iPhone packages are prohibitively expensive compared to the T-Mobile G1″
O2: “Your PAC code will be with you in about 48 hours.”

That’s after 9 years on O2 contracts. Impressive. In fact the customer service I have recieved from T-mobile so far has been ace, I was speaking to their customer services when the signal went on my phone, and they rang me straight back!

Anyway, enough of Operators, the phone is the point and here’s the bottom line.

The Google G1 isn’t as good as the iPhone in many (if not the majority) of ways, but in some it surpasses it (take the barcode reader app, no where near as usable on the iPhone but excellent on the G1). Also as the first generation of Android phones, it is a remarkable device and by the time my contract is up, there really will be something special available – you mark my words.