iPad 3 'first tablet' with Bluetooth 4.0 The Bluetooth SIG, overseer of the wireless communications standard, was quick this morning to state that Apple's iPad 3 "is the world’s first Bluetooth Smart Ready tablet, incorporating Bluetooth 4.0 and its hallmark feature low energy technology". The SIG didn't say as much, but this is no surprise since not only the iPhone …
Completely false mr Chris 171.
Actually Bluetooth 4 blows the doors right open and third party apps can connect directly to Bluetooth 4 devices without special licensing or intervention from Apple. App Store approved too.
I've made such app myself to connect to an Arduino with a homebrew Bluetooth 4 receiver (CC2540 chip)
No shitty old Bluetooth communications range either, about the same as Wifi.
>third party apps can connect directly to Bluetooth 4 devices without special licensing or intervention from Apple. App Store approved too.
So MFi is effectively dead then? That's a major news event. I cynically assumed BT4 was just a side-effect of their chipset choice and they would continue to lock off most of the stack and hardware extension framework as they do now.
But perhaps Apple should work on their software stack so it can do simple things from Bluetooth 1.0 like send files to other bluetooth devices.
Until they get that fixed, they can have whatever fucking Bluetooth hardware version they want, as the fact is, they don't even have Bluetooth 1.0 yet in software.
I have a Nokia N73 with which I take a lot of photographs. Both my Windows laptop and all my Linux boxes automatically copy the pictures and video via Bluetooth. Also when I want to take a shopping list with me it is convenient to type it on a computer and send it to the mobile. Of course it is also a good music player so again I send tracks to it via Bluetooth. If I could afford the data traffic I would also use the mobile as a 3G modem.
I move things on and off my phone using bluetooth all the time. I don't have to worry about where it is (not even which room in the house it's in), an dcertainly don't have to go faffing around with cables.
Granted BT is not fast, but for the occasional file, is a lot quicker than routing through a draw for a cable.
Well, if you count a .vcf contact file in that category of Bluetooth action, then quite often. It's sort of the forgotten piece of functionality that Apple don't seem to care about.
In the days before Facebook, Myspace, etc. people would swap photos with Bluetooth. It's still quite effective - it incurs no data cost and works irrespective of local 3G coverage - but generally people have forgotten about that little nugget of functionality. With smart phones and now tablet becoming more and more capable, it ought to be something that happens more.
This is typical of the effect that Apple (and Android to a lesser extent) have had on the market. Apple implemented a smart-ish phone that was lacking in several key areas (crap battery life, the ability to make and hold on to a phone call, most of Bluetooth not working, no support for Java apps, poor security, expensive to buy and run, unreliable, fragile, prone to breaking down, etc. etc) and then managed to persuade customers in their millions that none of that was important. And then Apple (in an impressively cynical way) claim to be great innovators when they finally put right some of those omissions (which so far they've failed to do by most accounts).
For example, it is perfectly feasible these days to turn up with (and I pick RIM purely because I know for sure that you can do this) a Blackberry Playbook, give a Powerpoint presentation using it connected to a projector with the notes displayed on the tablet's own screen, using your Bluetooth connected Blackberry phone as a back/forward remote control. Then if anyone wants a copy of the presentation you could just Bluetooth it straight to their phone, laptop, along with contacts details. None of it needs a cloud, 3G coverage, prior knowledge of their email address, etc. So it works, and its reliable. Unless they've got an iPhone, or possibly if they've an Android. Reliability of such technology is absolutely key if you want to make that sale!
But because of the generally depressive effect that the likes of Apple have on what people's expectations are of technology, it is very difficult for companies that do actually make this stuff work to get their message across. In effect their advertising has to be along the lines of "Things can be better than an iPhone! Don't fall for the Cappuccino PR". Which isn't a very good message to dish out to people who've got expensive iPhones burning holes in their pockets and don't want to be told they're stupid for not having looked elsewhere.
The self service photo kiosks at Asda support Bluetooth. When I have to get photos printed, rather than finding a USB stick and carrying that to the shop with me, I move the photos from the computer to the phone using Dropbox, and then send them to the kiosk via Bluetooth. when I get to the shop
That's just ridiculous. I use it everyday and transfer several megabytes of pictures. I've just sent disc one of the remastered Made In Japan (128kbps, MP3) to my N73 from my Acer One, it took 14 minutes and is 70MB, that's just over 80k byte per second. That's fast enough for MP3 streaming.
Granted it is not as fast as WiFi would be but then I would need some kind of router and my mobile would need both WiFi and access to the network. With a peer to peer connection like Bluetooth I can transfer data even where there is no network or where my device does not have permission to connect, for instance, in my office where only company computers can connect to the wireless network.
router? My galaxy S2 will act as a wifi adhoc network (i've done roughly the same as you to copy pictures between phones), surely your acer one would do the same?
Oddly enough, before we thought of adhoc'ing it was faster to email the pictures to each other over H+ now that is sad when email works faster than bluetooth...
I've got to laugh at all the Mactards on here saying "Well I never use it, so no one ever uses it". Seems a bit like me saying "Well I never use Video Chat, so what's the point in Facetime then?". Just because you can;t figure out how to use it properly doesn;t mean there aren't others out here who find Bluetooth File Transfer bloody useful, be it for quickly sending a photo to my latop without arsing about with cables or quickly sending a pciture to someone else.
There are plenty of us out here who would rather use paper and pen than work the way Apple forces you to work. At least other platforms leave in a bit of flexibility,,,
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