Macintosh macOS Monterey (OS 12) has added some new synergies between the Mac and iPhone iOS 15. The one I write about to tell you today is important to know about if you don’t have unlimited cellular data and “hotspot.”
When on your Mac, you may notice that the WI-Fi menubar icon sometimes displays your iPhone Personal Hotspot as a connectivity option.
Yet, when you check your iPhone Settings, you can verify that Personal Hotspot is Off.
So what’s going on?
What seems to be happening is this new synergy or communication between MacOS and iPhoneOS.
That is:
Selecting your iPhone as your network actually turns the Personal Hotspot on automatically for you now!
It’s a very nice convenience.
It may help as you travel and the shared Wi-Fi networks are spotty.
Just be aware that you’re turning the Personal Hotspot feature on.
And remember to return to the Wi-Fi menubar menu and switch back to Wi-Fi before you use up all your data or hotspot. This will also turn off your Personal Hotspot. It may take a little while though.
You may want to open iPhone Settings and make sure the hotspot is off though. Just in case.
TIP 1
You want to keep Personal Hotspot off when you’re not using it because it can cost you some, or all, of your precious data allotment. There are plenty of times when that data is the only way to find a location as you travel, or to FaceTime or Skype or such with your friends, family, boss, or clients. So you definitely don’t want to have this on unnecessarily.
Don’t forget that when using a public Wi-Fi network, you should be using a VPN.
Note: I write this with MacOS 12.2.2 and iOS 15.3.1 — I have not looked into whether this worked in earlier versions of MacOS 12 or iOS 15 as you should be keeping those up to date.