By Jason Snell

July 15, 2016 11:31 AM PT

iOS 10: A place for Ethernet

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

So we already knew that iOS can use Ethernet, courtesy of Phil Schiller back in March: “For example, you can plug in an Ethernet adapter to get on your corporate network,” he said while introducing the new Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter. However, it has no user interface to speak of, so it just sort of silently works (assuming your Ethernet network assigns devices IP addresses via DHCP, which most do).

I’ve even heard suggestions that Ethernet support was built into iOS by Steve Jobs’s decree after a memorable Wi-Fi failure at a WWDC keynote.

What’s new is this: as pointed out to me by reader Chris Humphreys, when you’ve got an Ethernet adapter connected to a device running the iOS 10 beta, an Ethernet setting appears in the Settings app!

Unfortunately… there’s no content in that pane. But it’s there! Perhaps by the time iOS 10 ships, users whose Ethernet networks require more exotic settings will be able to set them directly in iOS, as we can today on the Mac. We live in hope.

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