Why can't I hotspot my Mac to my iPhone?

There's been a lot of confusion about when and how you can get a phone's Internet connection on the Internet via a Mac some information that's just plain wrong.

We've had several people tell us that they were able to do so with an older generation iPhone, but never the iPhone 4 or 5 because they hadn't enabled Mobile Hotspot. Then we told one of our readers that he could connect to his iPhone while it was in hotspot mode on his Mac he couldn't hotspot it while his phone was locked and he was connected to his home router via Wi-Fi.

So if I just got my new iPhone 5 and connected it to my Mac, wouldn't that allow me to connect with it to the Internet? I have a 4G LTE phone. Why can't I hotspot my iPhone to my Mac, or even better, my iPad?

Can I use my MacBook as a hotspot for my phone?

I have an iPhone 4s and a 13" MacBook.

Is there any way I can connect the two devices to create a Wi-Fi hotspot so I don't have to pay for a data plan on my iPhone? Yes, you can do this using the AirPort Utility in OS X. Open AirPort Utility from /Applications/Utilities/, and select "Create WiFi Access Point". You should see options to create a 802.11n access point (ie you need an Apple Airport Express or AirPort Extreme), or create a regular 802.11b/g access point.

On your Mac, create a network. Set it up as a wireless access point, using the same name as you used in AirPort Utility.

Once this is set up, plug the iPhone into your Mac with a USB cable. When you select "Create WiFi Access Point", the iPhone will ask you for the password of the new wireless network, so you'll need to enter that on your Mac. You should now be able to set up your iPhone as a hotspot. If you need to connect other devices, you can do this by setting the same access point on the Mac, and giving them a name. For example, you can connect your iPad as well. Connecting other devices as wireless clients is covered in the iOS 6.1 release notes.