ibooks and bluetooth

I would be more inclined to think Apple would announce blue-tooth integrated into systems at one of the Expo's. Even if it is at one of the minor ones, ie not at MWNY or MWSF.

Personally, I would rather see bluetooth as a BTO option, rather then built into laptops. I know that some pda's, cell phones and a few other devices use bluetooth, but how many home users have that?? I don't even know of any professional people with such devices (not to say that people don't use them).

Now, if Apple produces a bluetooth card for the Xserve, increases it's range to more then airport, THEN I could see it going somewhere. You could set up a network of bluetooth printers, connected to the Xserve so that people could print to them from up to X feet away from them.

Does anyone know what the freg. of bluetooth is???

If I am not mistaken, I just read this page quickly and I found out that Bluetooth uses frequency hopping.

http://www.swedetrack.com/images/bluet11.htm
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Any time is a great time for iPod.

Not bad... that would make sense in a corporate environment, since you never really know what kind of radio junk/noise you will have to deal with. All they need to do is give it a decent range. I read someplace that it has an effective range of something like 30 feet, unless that is bad info, that blows for anything outside of a single office. To use that in a corporate environment wouldn't fly very well. Even if they have signal repeaters and such, the costs could balloon fast.

i agree with alpha....

for instance, apple didnt just release airport - it had several demonstrations at conferences and expos to show off the new technology and to show how it could fit into a commercial or consumer home...

i think that they wont be released until the macworld ny.. or later

I would be more inclined to think Apple would announce blue-tooth integrated into systems at one of the Expo's. Even if it is at one of the minor ones, ie not at MWNY or MWSF.

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As many have posted, there is controversy surrounding the form of Bluetooth devices. What I was wondering is how Bluetooth can become more reliable to certain theft or other actions, as discussed in another thread?

I personally like the idea of frequency hopping quite a lot to prevent the interference, as the article mentioned. It just seems more reliable than regular solo frequency devices.
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I would love it if Airport could do something like that, since my portable phone shares the same frequency as Airport. It's not a big deal, unless I get a call on my home phone, which boots me off the net. Then again, when I am home, and need to make a call while online, I usually do it from my cell phone. I have more then enough time on that thing to use it as my main phone too (about 3550 minutes/month, 550 peak, 3000 off-peak ).

i would expect bluetooth as an option on the towers and TiBooks before the iBooks. i wouldn't mind it, only if it was a BTO option.

Originally posted by cb911
i would expect bluetooth as an option on the towers and TiBooks before the iBooks. i wouldn't mind it, only if it was a BTO option.

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Airport was in the iBook first... so why would you not expect BlueTooth to follow that pattern? If the range is effectively only 30 feet, how bad is it going to suck in the TiBook, where airport range is cut by a third? I have no qualms with Apple putting a technology in a lower-tier device first to see if the reaction warrants the redesign necessary to include it in other lines.

Originally posted by IndyGopher
If the range is effectively only 30 feet, how bad is it going to suck in the TiBook, where airport range is cut by a third?

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I do not remember hearing that the range on the Airport was that much less on a Titanium Powerbook than an iBook. Would you care to explain why or where you found this? Just curious.
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Any time is a great time for iPod.

Originally posted by IndyGopher

Airport was in the iBook first... so why would you not expect BlueTooth to follow that pattern? If the range is effectively only 30 feet, how bad is it going to suck in the TiBook, where airport range is cut by a third? I have no qualms with Apple putting a technology in a lower-tier device first to see if the reaction warrants the redesign necessary to include it in other lines.

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Airport range is 150 feet... which is 5x what you list for bluetooth. I gather math is not one of your strengths.

Originally posted by King Cobra


I do not remember hearing that the range on the Airport was that much less on a Titanium Powerbook than an iBook. Would you care to explain why or where you found this? Just curious.

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Where I found it was in my TiBook. I bought one of the 500MHz dual USB iBooks as soon as they were announced last year. In August of last year, I came into a bit of money and decided I would get the 500MHz TiBook to replace it... G4, bigger screen.. seemed like a good idea. And it was.. except that the range on the Airport was only a little better than half of what it was on the iBook. I can go anywhere in my yard with my iBook (I have the 600 now, quite a spunky little machine) and I simply could not do that with the TiBook. A customer of mine was kind enough to loan me his Rev. B TiBook overnight when I was contemplating switching to a 667 TiBook, and while it didn't have quite as poor reception as my 500 did, it still was not as good as the iBook. Between the two TiBooks I have tested, I would estimate the average at right about 2/3 of the range I get/got with my two iBooks.

Originally posted by AlphaTech
Airport range is 150 feet... which is 5x what you list for bluetooth. I gather math is not one of your strengths.

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What I said, although not as clearly as I would have liked to, is that while Airport is supposed to get 150 feet, it gets a lot less in the TiBooks. SO, if Airport gets less than it's 150 feet in a TiBook, it stands to reason that BlueTooth would also get less than its supposed 30 feet in the TiBook.

Regarding Bluetooth for Xserve and printers - that's what Airport is for. Bluetooth is not for large files, it's very slow and should be used for metadata and small audio transfers, such as

- internet surfing / bluetooth phone
- transferring contacts and other text-based information to other machines
- bluetooth headphones
- mice, keyboards, input devices
- remote controls

Where file sharing, printing etc. and to a degree internet surfing should be handled by Airport.

The two technologies overlap each other slightly, but Bluetooth has other benefits such as low power usage, cheaper than airport etc.

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Christian