Reverse Tether using Bluetooth PAN to iOS Devices

I managed to share my iMac's connection with my iPad flawlessly. I paired via Bluetooth, enabled sharing from wifi to Bluetooth PAN, and connected great. The internet was intermittant– occasionally the iMac would be dropped from the network, also disconnecting the iPad from the network. Disconnecting the iPad and reconnecting the iMac before reconnecting the iPad made this work fine. My iPad, though, is not the device I need to connect to the internet. It can connect via wifi very easily without being paired with the iMac via Bluetooth. I suppose it's fairly cool that I can turn wifi off and still have internet connection through Bluetooth PAN, though.

The iPhone 5 will not connect to the iMac via Bluetooth. Each time the iPhone has a dialogue telling me my iMac is not supported and automatically disconnects. I tried using the iPad to share its wifi network with the iMac by using a Bluetooth PAN then I tried to make the iMac share this network with the iPhone using wifi. The iPhone connected to the iMac's wifi network successfully, but evidently the iMac is not connecting to the internet through the Bluetooth PAN. The iMac shows a connection to the iPad, but the iPad is evidently not sharing its internet connection with the iMac. It does show the linked chains in the upper left corner. I tried sharing connection using an iPhone 4S, but it also has a dialogue saying Bluetooth with the iMac is not supported.

My iPhone 5 has a very short wifi range (30ft) and no cell network connection at my house. All my other devices (including iPhone 4S, iPad, iMac) have great connection, so I'd like to use these devices to ensure my iPhone is within 30ft of an antenna.

If I can't get the iPad-iMac-iPhone system working tomorrow, I'm going to try to connect an old PowerBook to my iMac via Ethernet and share the network that way.

It seems like with the number of wifi devices I have laying around the house I should be able to connect them all to the internet...

-Nate

I Ran into this same issue after installing IOS6. This was a killer feature I used frequently while travelling and staying in hotels where only one connection was allowed to one device. I shared my ethernet or wifi via bluetooth to all my Idevices.

In IOS6 apple took away the ability to share internet via bluetooth to the iphone. Genius bar researched and confirmed this.. only suggestion was to contact apple via suggestion portal and request the feature back.

Apparently since they are pushing the cloud based services they feel there is no need for bluetooth connectivity and use between mac computers and iphones.

It still works with the ipad.

I was using bluetooth to reverse tether my iMac/iPad Mini running Mountain Lion/IOS until tonight, it failed. No idea why I was able to set it up using PAN before and use it unless something in IOS7 killed it. But it worked after I 'upgraded' to IOS7 on the iPad Mini. These changes that take things away are not nice argh, 50 bad words. I have had ML on the iMac since I bought it...

scott

I managed to get it to work. iOS 7.0.4 and Mavericks. The trick was to turn on both Internet Sharing and Bluetooth Sharing on the MacBook Pro and then pair the MacBook and the iPad.

You can't connect your phone to your computer and browse through it over wi-fi if your computer is connected to wi-fi unless you have more than one wi-fi radio in your computer (such as the internal wi-fi and a USB wi-fi adapter) because a wi-fi adapter can only be a client or an access point, not both at the same time.

So: If your internal wi-fi is connected to a router then it can't also serve internet access to your phone.

The same here !! (osx 10.7.5)

Another proof that Apple is no more finishing is almost perfect operating system but has started (since snow leopard) to disimproving it...

I guess the this future will never be back for an iPhone 😟

Hello , i was able to connect Various Android Devices but strangely enough i am not able to connect an iPad Mini 2 - i mean, it is possible to connect it, but the Bluetooth Tethering eg. Internet Sharing from Ethernet to IOS via Bluetooth PAN is not working. This happens with iPad Mini 2 and IOS 9.2.1 although the device is paired with Network Access Something.

Anyone else having this issue?

Dont waste time. I wasted lot of time. Finally bought a different phone.