Q: Does the iPad 2 support Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi? I’m not jailbroken so I don’t have access to Cydia. What about other iPad models?
– Anas
A: Unfortunately no. The Personal Hotspot feature is only supported on the third- and fourth-generation iPad and the iPad mini, as well as the iPhone 3G and later models. Note that only the iPhone 4/4S/5 and supported iPad models offer Personal Hotspot over Wi-Fi, with the iPhone 3G and 3GS working only over Bluetooth or USB.
Keep in mind as well, however, that Personal Hotspot is also dependent upon your carrier and in some cases even your chosen data plan. Further, while Apple maintains a list of carriers with corresponding feature availability for the iPhone, no such list is available for the iPad. Even if you own a supported iPad model, you should therefore check with your cellular service provider as to whether an iPad data plan that includes the Personal Hotspot feature is available.
Note that jailbreaking an iPad 2 and installing the appropriate apps from Cydia will provide the ability to essentially use the device as a Personal Hotspot, regardless of carrier data plan as well. However, this is an unsupported configuration in terms of getting any Apple of official carrier support for the feature. Further, if you are not on a data plan that officially provides tethering, it is unlikely but possible that using this feature could result in additional data charges outside of your normal on-device plan.
