My work often requires me to tether my smartphone to write manuscripts or do research when I am out and about, and while the smartphone itself is connected smoothly with a 5G connection and five antennas, the laptop tethered to Wi-Fi is often slow. Then, when I connect to free Wi-Fi at a café, it is also slow and blurred. …… This phenomenon is especially noticeable in crowded cafes.
Then I remembered the existence of “USB tethering”: if you open “Internet Sharing” in the iPhone’s settings, you will find a description of the USB icon and description, following the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth icons and descriptions. In theory, this should be the fastest tethering speed.
However, simply connecting the iPhone to a Windows machine with a USB cable does not enable tethering, only the ability to browse photos/videos on the iPhone storage. I found out that I need a service called “Apple Mobile Device Support,” which I think I used to take care of when I used to use iTunes to backup/restore my iPhone.
But with all the subscriptions, I haven’t used iTunes in a long time, and I was thinking about ……, and then I found an app in the Microsoft Store called “Apple Devices” that was exactly what I was looking for.
Apple Devices” is a Windows store app provided by Apple itself that allows users to backup/restore and transfer data from their iPhones and other Apple products. At the time of writing, the app was last updated on January 14, 2026, so it is still active.
With the Apple device activated, “Allow others to connect” on the iPhone side and then connect it via USB, a message will appear asking if you “trust this iPhone” or not. If you allow it and Windows recognizes the device, items such as iOS update and backup/restore will appear, but this is not important in this case.
If you have proceeded this far, the “tethering wired icon” should appear in the notification area (task tray). The slow and bothersome Wi-Fi tethering is over for today.
© Source travel watch