I've been cheerleading for iPhone tethering since this past summer. In spite of that AT&T and Apple have failed to announce it. With Macworld Expo 2009 almost over, I'm beginning to wonder if Apple considers this feature a maybe-someday feature rather than a priority.

I'm picking up on a line of thought from Macworld Podcast 143. Someone on the panel pointed out that, due to spectacular growth in market share, the average Mac user is not really a veteran with five or more years experience on the platform. If that is the case, there's less in the way of awareness of technologies like the Snow Leopard release of Mac OS X. Otherwise, why would Apple be selling the Mac Box Set consisting of iLife '09, iWork '09, and Leopard?

Of course the new versions of iLife and iWork require Leopard, but selling the three as an ensemble strongly suggests that Leopard will be around for some time to come.

Technophiles like us generally know why Snow Leopard is important to the future of the Mac platform even if we don't want to pay for it. Mac users like my wife-- who is much smarter than me but isn't up on every feature of OS X 10.5-- don't know what Snow Leopard is or does.

Many of the same principles may hold for the iPhone feature set, with tethering being a good example of a feature that is of limited significance. Lack of tethering support has not stopped untold numbers of people worldwide from purchasing iPhones. Tethering is an important feature to long distance commuters and technology pundits filling out smartphone comparison charts. But it's not a big deal to most iPhone users.

So will tethering ever happen officially? It seems like a no-brainer; It's a big potential source of incremental revenue for AT&T. But I became pessimistic today for the first time in a while.

I know that I won't be satisfied with tethering implemented as a third-party app. And if it has to be embedded in the iPhone 3G firmware deep enough that it can run in the background of a non-jailbroken handset, we're talking about a major firmware release.

Tethering is a niche need with a much smaller constituency than Microsoft Exchange support. And if we're looking for "gee wiz" features to be added to the iPhone, they'll probably be things that the a large percentage of iPhone users will at least try.

That's why I think that features like tethering are significantly lower on Apple's priority list than on AT&T's. That's also why I think the iPhone feature set will continue to focus on technologies that typical iPhone customers will understand and use.

I'm somewhat sad to conclude that people like us probably aren't the target market for the iPhone anymore. There are a lot more people who just want the iPhone because it makes them more productive than they are with any other smartphone.

Maybe that's why Apple will make us a bigger, more sophisticated iPhone-like device someday. I hope so.