How to Install Verizon Mobile Hotspot on Your Palm Pre!
(My Sprint Palm Pre (Web OS 1.4.1.1) running Verizon’s Mobile Hotspot for FREE!)
Demo video of the Mobile Hotspot running flawlessly on my Sprint Palm Pre:
I know I have been using MyTether for awhile but for some reason, recently it broke down. I think Sprint blocked it or something. MyTether USB still works well but wireless seems to have been broken with version 1.4.1.1.
Anyways, I heard some rumors that some people were installing Verizon’s mobile hotspot on their Palm Pre. After some serious hours of research, I have found out that it does indeed work on the latest WebOS 1.4.1.1.
The steps are rather simple, just follow these step-by-step directions so you can install Verizon’s mobile hotspot on your Palm Pre:
1. Download WebOSQuickInstall.jar (java program, also check this thread on PreCentral for the latest version) and you will also need to download the latest WebOSDoctor.jar. (you can download this later)
Also make sure you have Java installed as these files won’t run without Java. If you don’t have Java installed, simply point your browser to Java.com and you can install it.
2. Also download these two files, com.palm.app.mobilehotspot_1.0.14_all-already_patched.ipk (the actual Verizon Mobile Hotspot patched to work with other Palm Pre OSes), and us.ryanhope.freetetherd_0.0.3_armv7.ipk (which will re-route your IP address to the Mobile Hotspot).
3. Now put all of them in the same directory and run WebOSQuickInstall.jar. Run the program and if you don’t have WebOSDoctor.jar downloaded, it will ask if you want to download it. (Say yes of course)
4. Make sure you have Novacom installed, if you don’t run WebOSQuickInstall.jar then go to File->Options then select, “Attempt Novacom (re)installation.” This will work on Windows, for linux, download these drivers. For Mac OSX, you will need to install the whole Palm SDK, which comes with Novacom, download Mac OSX Palm SDK here
5. Now the fun part, put your Palm Pre into dev mode by going to home then typing “upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart”. (You should see a dev mode menu pop up where you can enable dev mode.)
6. Connect your Palm Pre to your computer.
7. Run WebOSQuickInstall. (or go back to it if it’s already running)
8. Click on + button and add the file us.ryanhope.freetetherd_0.0.3_armv7.ipk. Click Install.
9. Click on + button again add the file com.palm.app.mobilehotspot_1.0.14_all-already_patched.ipk. Click Install.
10. Check your phone to see if the Mobile Hotspot app has appeared, if it has, you are done!
Just in case you have trouble, I made a short YouTube video detailing every step on how to install the Mobile Hotspot app on your Palm Pre:
{Sorry, I had to take the video off as I accidentally left my numbers on it…}
Troubleshooting
If you are getting any connectivity errors, then you probably need to make sure novacom is installed. If it is installed, try re-booting your computer then try again.
If your Palm Pre’s storage is full, you won’t be able to install programs, so make sure there’s free space if you get errors while trying to install the ipk files.
Huge thanks to PreCentral, I wouldn’t have been able to install Verizon’s Mobile Hotspot app on my Sprint Palm Pre.
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May 16th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
[...] This post is a bit outdated, please see this new post that teaches you how to install Verizon’s Mobile Hotspot on your Palm Pre for FREE. [...]
May 17th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
GFWorld – The mobile world for all information on mobile phones,smartphones, mid,netbook and mobile apps.
May 19th, 2010 at 1:06 am
i got it installed but when i connect to the hotspot my laptop tells me there is no internet access. im did get a message that said your provider doesnt allow sharing, so i restarted my phone and the message hasnt come back but i still have no internet access? i will have to keep digging to find the proplem here…
May 21st, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I would love to try this but the download com.palm.app.mobilehotspot_1.0.14_all-already_patched.ipk doesn’t seem to work anymore. Anyone have a suggestion?
May 24th, 2010 at 7:47 am
I too installed as instructed. Get “local access only” after “data plan required” message on the Pre. I also had the same problem with MyTether after 1.4.1 update. Maybe there is something to reset on my Vista computer?
May 26th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
It won’t let me instal us.ryanhope.freetethered….
Saysys an error ocurred, return value 4
Suggestions?
May 28th, 2010 at 12:51 am
super easy to install, works great. I get way faster speeds with the mobile hotspot compaired to mytether. For some reason mytether would not use 3g speeds or cooperate with vista.
May 29th, 2010 at 7:19 am
Works great. It does give the message about service provider does not allow sharing and to contact Sprint for help. I wonder if the app phones home or is just an automated message.
I was using my iTouch and the browser and map apps work great but youtube was slow.
May 29th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
[...] works perfectly for me because I already have free 3G mobile hotspot working on both my Palm Pre and Nexus One, both which are on [...]
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Thanks, works very well but for undisclosed reasons i have to remove this app, how do i do that?
June 5th, 2010 at 8:11 am
I got the same problem as Chad. The us.ryanhope.freetetherd package is bad. It returns error value 4. I even tried it with the emulator and it also failed. Any suggestions, please? Thanks…..
June 5th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Isaac, you can use the installer (WebOSQuickInstall) that you use to install this app to uninstall it.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:01 am
I installed this app…was simple even for a noob like me….seems to work ok, even though I too got the error for us.ryanhope.freetethered….I can connect my netbook just fine….but since I have almost no signal here at home with Sprint, I guess I will have to wait till I get in a better area to see how well it really works
June 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
When I try to run webos quick install and download the ryanushope thing onto the pre it gives me a message to either check spelling or check for ipkg update, anyone else?
June 9th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I finally figured out what happened with the us.ryanhope.freetetherd package. If you run into an error during the installation, you need to install Preware first. Read here on how to:
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware#Installing_Preware_with_WebOS_Quick_Install
Once the Preware is installed, follow the steps as outlined in this article and you will be good to go!
Thanks to all the people here. You are the best!!!
http://treo.discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?s=f5e74ee1efcd89c2331436c0702cb56c&t=239471
June 11th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I did it.. it works great.. it took no more then 10mins.. thanks !!
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:59 pm
i downloaded my thether 1.4 version from weedgeekedup website but i try to run the appl. on my xp for compatibility i got an error message.. what do i do? anyone ??
June 27th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I followed the instructions and got it to work. One point to clarify is when connecting the Pre, do it in charge only mode. I had to install the preware as per the comment above.
HOWEVER, when I ran a speed test, I was only getting 380KB/sec as opposed to the 1MB I was expecting. Has anyone checked what type of throughput speeds they are getting using this solution on the Sprint network?
June 28th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I have installed on my Palm Pre – I also got a message about service provider does not allow sharing and to contact Sprint for help. Seems to work ok, but seems very slow … hmm
June 30th, 2010 at 2:02 am
will this work on At&t palm pre plus???
also, does it still allow u to make calls and access your emails FROM YOUR PALM PRE PLUS while it’s tethered to your laptop?
June 30th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
thank you, i eventually found it in webosquickinstall, but took me a little while because it was labeled as “This is a webOS application”
July 13th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Hi, everything installed correctly once I installed the Preware, but now my laptop can’t seem to get a network address, so it won’t connect. Anyone have any ideas?
July 13th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I have a copy of the mobile hotsot app and just installed it with quick install. when i first tried to launch the app it opened but showed a message at the bottom that “mobile hotspot service is not running”. so not even thinking about it the next day i decided to check for updates for my other apps, and guess whut, there was an update for mobile hotspot. it updated like any other app and has worked just fine ever since. i am running the newest webOS. If you have tried to install freetetherd and the file got copied to ur phone and is running u will have to install the freetether app to forward the data, but if u have a virgin phone all u need is the mobile hotspot ipk. if you email me i will be more than willing to email you the file when i can get back to my computer. (paulmont15@gmail.com) i made the mistake of trying freetetherd and freetether app combo and that didnt work for me but this does. i cant seem to be able to remove the freetetherd file so i have to keep turning on that whenever i turn on mobile hotspot
July 13th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
the ipk i have is supposed to be for all carriers but my family has has sprint hardware so i cant test any others, but i have got it working this way on 3 Pres
July 20th, 2010 at 9:38 am
i have a new pre w/ at&t. I installed both ipks per instruction above, enabled the hotspot, and my laptop was able to connect to the pre. but the laptop can not get on any webpages. dns not resolved.
any thoughts?
July 20th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
nevermind. i restarted the device, and the mifi is working great!
July 25th, 2010 at 10:18 am
I will be giving this a shot tomorrow with my girlfriend’s pre. a few questions…. 1. It’s unclear whether my Pre needs to be rooted for this to work? (by installing the SDK etc.) 2. It’s unclear what apps/packges need to be installed where. I see instructions like “install this app” but it’s unclear whether it means to the phone or the PC. 3. is there a way to update this page with the instructions about Pre-ware needing to be installed first? 4. Is there a video on youtube showing this step by step? Thanks!!
July 29th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Not having to much experience or knowing all of the functions referenced here, I installed this on a friends Verizon Pre Plus via their Mac. Tried a few days ago, but not being familiar with Macs, we couldn’t install the Pre SDK; they first had to upgrade Mac OS X from 10.4 (Tiger?) to Snow Leopard (10.6?)…would not install on 10.4. After the MAC OS upgrade, we moved through the rest of these steps quickly until we hit the first ipk…it would not install (Error message 4). After several attempts, skipped the “ryanhope” ipk install and installed the MHS patched ipk…and it seemed to be working. We have the loptop running internet through MHS, so what is the function of the “ryanhope” patch? Will this seriously screw something up down the road, or would MHS not work at all without IP forwarding? I am not sure what the function is of the step I had to skip.
July 30th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I successfully installed this on my AT&T Palm Pixi Plus, being used with Rogers Wireless in Canada. The mobile hotspot is created and connectable with good speed results. The only odd thing is that the “on/off” switch in the hotspot application has absolutely no effect whatsoever, either to enable or disable the wireless hotspot.
To turn it on, I have to select the “network name” and then say done, at which point the hotspot app confirms it’s broadcasting. To turn it off, I have to go into the WebOS WiFi menu option and turn wifi ON (it appears as off when mobile hotspot is active), at which point the notification appears the the hotspot is being disabled.
This is the procedure I’ve found I need ot use every time to activate/deactivate the mobile hotspot. Does anyone else have this experience?
August 15th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
worked like a charm, thumbs up to my fellow palm pres and thank you mr lee!
August 20th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
I will have to say this was very easy to install and works great. Took less than 2 minutes!!! I am amazed at what this Palm Pre can do and the talent of the developers. Not to mention enthusiasts that take the time to write tutorials like this. Great job man, much appreciated!!!!!
August 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 am
I installed this without a problem, but am wondering if using this will charge my sprint bill as it says it will when i first opened the new app. any idea?
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:06 pm
This is a great hack. Appreciate the simple directions. Initial error (could not connect) cured with Novacom reinstallation. ryanhope error fixed with preware installation. THANKS.
September 3rd, 2010 at 6:40 am
[...] version the other day and re-installed the latest MyTether version. I was sort of irritated until here I found that there is another possibility – a hacked version of the Verison hotspot app for the Pre [...]
September 13th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
will there be a charge for data usage when using this in an area that is roaming?
September 13th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
This was great. Installed the ipk’s perfectly fine and had my laptop running Win-7 connected
in about 5 minutes. Thanks for this demo and to those who wrote the patches..
September 16th, 2010 at 7:58 am
got everything installed and the network shows up but it says there is not internet access. i tried to call sprint but they clearly didn’t want to help me (not sure why that was suggested at the end of these instructions) – can anyone help? i’ve noticed i’m not the only one who’s had this problem recently.
September 20th, 2010 at 9:51 am
This works Great!!!
Thanks A Million!
September 22nd, 2010 at 6:11 pm
works great on the sprint pre
installed the app exactly as directed by the instructions posted
and it works perfectly with my netbook
had the level 4 error, but it cleared right up after I installed preware
September 27th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
THANKS WORKED INSTANTLY!!!!
September 29th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I have a verizon palm pre plus. I can enable a hotspot free with them but then there is a download max. If I do it this way, will verizon be able to tell and impose the monthly cap? Or will it just look like I’m using the unlimited data pack on the phone?
October 8th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Joe is the man!!
October 14th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I have the same issue? Did you figure it out?
October 14th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
did you get yours to work? I have this same issue.
October 18th, 2010 at 12:29 am
i have the original palm pre on sprint, will i be charge for using this app?
October 18th, 2010 at 12:30 am
let me know when u find out i don’t want a huge bill from sprint
October 21st, 2010 at 7:53 am
I have the original Pre on Sprint as well. I’ve used this tethering solution many times over the last 6 months and I’ve never ended up with a charge on my bill. The phone may pop up a warning once you connect your PC to your phone via wifi – telling you internet connection sharing isn’t supported with Sprint – but it still works and there’s never been a charge. (Incidentally, I think you only see this message if bluetooth is enabled too.)
I don’t abuse my use of tethering though. I only use it occasionally so my data use isn’t ridiculous. I imagine if you decided to run all your torrents though Sprints network you might suddenly pop up on their radar screen and get a surprise.
November 5th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
can you use this with a palm that is on the boost mobile network?
November 7th, 2010 at 1:39 am
I have WebOS 1.4.5 on the Sprint network and this works awesomely!!!! Screw the Mytether app I never could get the wifi to work with vista. But this worked on the very first try. Thank you so very much for writing this tutorial. Your the best lol.
November 19th, 2010 at 10:42 am
I installed this with no problems. However, it took a minute and a reset for it to show up as an available network. I got it running on my Mac & PC just to test it out. The primary purpose is to occassionly connect my iTouch. It connects but so far has been extremely slow but I’m not complaining. If it’s free, it’s for me.
November 26th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Is it possible to do this with the Sprint Palm Pixi? I just found instructions to switch the radio board with the Verizon Palm Pixi Plus to get wi-fi onto my sprint pixi. It’d be quite the upgrade to get a hotspot on a sprint pixi working…
November 28th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I bought a Palm Pixi Plus from O2 on pay as you go and received 500 MB of web traffic every month. Installed this worked perfectly on 1.4.5 and it doesn’t charge just counts as traffic done on my phone. I tried with both an iPod touch on iOS 4.1 as well as a Windows 7 laptop. So far so good even if it’s pretty slow. On 3G it’s pretty fast though… One question… will this work efficiently on webOS 2.0?? Also… if you update the app it will stop working. I really hope things stay the same… I’m thinking of saving for an iPad and this would be amazing…
December 7th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
had the level 4 error , but it installed mobile hotspot.
But it works, I can connect to internet over wifi.
December 7th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I installed this last spring and it worked great all summer, there was an update for it and now i cant get it to work anymore. i un-installed it and re-installed it but it still is not working, my computer connects to it just fine, but i cannot browse, if i ping a website, i get the ip returned but it times out, any ideas?
thanks
December 7th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
wish I ud enjoy this but have found everything fails my pre says file not supproted on everything so I have now wasted 3 days and 15 bucks on tether and nothing works. wthanks anyway.
December 13th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Just curious if anyone else has had really slow connections (150 kbps) even with Sprint EVDO at full bars?
Also, does anyone know how long the Pre’s battery will last in WiFi Hotspot mode?
December 18th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
I tried the hotspot install; did not work?
Palm pre shows connected to PC however my Windows7 Lenovo laptop does not connect.
Browser never connects to the internet; never.
January 19th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Thanks for the suggestion. I changed the network name and password several times without success. The hotspot turns on and recognizes that the device is connected. I can even detect the wifi signal on my laptop. Despite connecting to the hotspot, there is no internet access. Still get the Sprint does not allow this service message but not everytime I try to connect. Still hoping for someone who has been able to get access back.
January 24th, 2011 at 5:57 am
I get the same issue. Can connect to the hotspot and pull an ip address but can not get on the internet. This used to work for me too but no longer.
Thanks
January 27th, 2011 at 11:01 am
thanks alot works with att it switches my 3g off i just have to re enable it then i can use my internet on my desktop pc thank you so much for this
February 20th, 2011 at 8:45 am
I have the same problem, the device recognizes the laptop and there is an ip given but says no internet access. Were you able to connect?
March 18th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
i’m running 1.4.5 on my Sprint Palm Pre and I keep getting the no internet access problem no matter what I do. Has anyone been able to work around this?
April 9th, 2011 at 11:07 am
copy the name of the file and paste in a search. there are other places to download this..
May 13th, 2011 at 9:10 am
I had the same problem as some of you, i could connect and get an ip address but i had no internet access. The hot spot had updated to v. 1.1.4. You need to un-install any other version and re-install the hacked 1.0.14 version. DO NOT ALLOW ANY UPDATES, PERIOD! any updates that are downloaded to your phone are not hacked and therefore do not work on anything other than verizon.