Apple pulled iPhone tethering app iTether mere hours after its release in the iOS App Store late last year — the app existed for the sole purpose of bypassing the iPhone's internal hotspot capability, so Cupertino's move came as no surprise. The product is back this week, though, and it's going to be nearly impossible for Apple to cut it off this time around: the developers are using an innovative HTML5-only solution on the phone (or iPad) that doesn't require users to jailbreak or install an app at all. Instead, you connect the phone to an ad hoc Wi-Fi network that's shared with the PC you want to get on the internet, navigate the phone to a particular URL, log in to your account, and use a PC-based client to marshal the data. The end result, iTether claims, is that you can use your iPhone as your PC's modem simply by navigating it to a web page.

Unfortunately, iTether isn't a one-time purchase — you'll need to pay $15 per year if you sign up in the next week, $30 per year after that. Depending on your data plan, you may already have mobile hotspot included on your iPhone at no extra charge — but if nothing else, this could be an interesting option for AT&T iPad users who won't have access to the device's hotspot capability at launch, regardless of plan.