iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

[windwaves]

WHEN ?
I know they are coming and I know it will be the greatest day of all for myself and my iPod. I simply cannot walk around with wires hanging around like that. not only does it look retarded to me but also I just find it clumsy, unconfortable, not doable. I know also it is just me, and a few others. My father for instance does not mind. But the technology is there - we know there are bluetooth headset for cell phones. So what the hell ?

 

[Lanbrown]

But BT headsets for mobile phones are used differently. How you ask, you don't need clear sound for a phone conversation compared to listening to music. The phone headsets are not stereo either.

 

[mmmdreg]

if you're wearing more than one layer of clothing, put the wire down your back and round you and clip the remote onto your shirt from and then bundle the iPod and the rest of the remote wire in a pocket somewhere. It's not obtrusive at all. i do that at school where we have a shirt and a coat over it, and the white wire just blends in..

 

[uptick]

Re: iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

Originally posted by windwaves
WHEN ?
I know they are coming and I know it will be the greatest day of all for myself and my iPod. I simply cannot walk around with wires hanging around like that. not only does it look retarded to me but also I just find it clumsy, unconfortable, not doable. I know also it is just me, and a few others. My father for instance does not mind. But the technology is there - we know there are bluetooth headset for cell phones. So what the hell ?

I would agree that a wireless solution would be great! (i.e. using the iPod in the car with a bluetooth enabled car stereo, etc.)
However, I wouldn't find acceptable anything that clips the full bandwidth of the compressed AAC or MP3 file. Compressing a compressed file just to transmit it over the air would be terrible, IMHO! On the otherhand they should be able to adapt a bluetooth wireless remote control.

 

[AngryAngel]

Re: iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

Originally posted by windwaves
But the technology is there - we know there are bluetooth headset for cell phones. So what the hell ?

Do you want to have a rechargeable battery attached to each ear? I have one in my bluetooth headset, and it is fairly light but only lasts 2.5 hours. Do you want no wires and have to charge up each earpiece separately?

Also, as a poster above noted, the data rate of bluetooth is nowhere near good enough for high quality STEREO sound. I get around 4KB per second transfers to my phone from my G5, so I would think that is near the maximum of the interface.

 

[patrick0brien]

Re: Re: iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

Originally posted by uptick
I using the iPod in the car with a bluetooth enabled car stereo, etc

-uptick

Damn right. This is what I'm waiting for.

 

[lmalave]

Re: Re: iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

Originally posted by AngryAngel
Do you want to have a rechargeable battery attached to each ear? I have one in my bluetooth headset, and it is fairly light but only lasts 2.5 hours. Do you want no wires and have to charge up each earpiece separately?

Also, as a poster above noted, the data rate of bluetooth is nowhere near good enough for high quality STEREO sound. I get around 4KB per second transfers to my phone from my G5, so I would think that is near the maximum of the interface.

Bluetooth supports data transfers in excess of 700 Kbps. This is definitely enough for high-quality Stereo output. Just think about what is considered a quality bitrate for AAC or MP3 streaming - 192 Kbps is already quite good. Of course, the headphones would have to have a chip built in that would decode AAC and/or MP3, but that's a simple enough matter. Probably won't come cheap, though.

As for the battery life, I think that's the bigger issue. Maybe the headphones will just be freakin' huge. I have a set of wireless headphones (not Bluetooth, obviously), and they are huge and take 2 AAA batteries.

 

[uptick]

I was a bit surprised that the promo with the VW Beetle still uses a standard tape cassette adapter - how crude. With many more cars being equipped without a tape deck, this option will become obsolete.
The FM transmitter is flakey as well.

I believe the only car now that has a factory option of a direct line-in to the head unit (aux port) is the MINI Cooper .

 

[joshuajestelle]

Originally posted by uptick
I was a bit surprised that the promo with the VW Beetle still uses a standard tape cassette adapter - how crude. With many more cars being equipped without a tape deck, this option will become obsolete.
The FM transmitter is flakey as well.

I believe the only car now that has a factory option of a direct line-in to the head unit (aux port) is the MINI Cooper .

Have you seen the Smart i-Move. This car is awesome and comes equipped with an iPod.

Josh

 

[Lanbrown]

Re: Re: Re: iPod & Bluetooth Headhones ???

Originally posted by lmalave
Bluetooth supports data transfers in excess of 700 Kbps. This is definitely enough for high-quality Stereo output. Just think about what is considered a quality bitrate for AAC or MP3 streaming - 192 Kbps is already quite good. Of course, the headphones would have to have a chip built in that would decode AAC and/or MP3, but that's a simple enough matter. Probably won't come cheap, though.

As for the battery life, I think that's the bigger issue. Maybe the headphones will just be freakin' huge. I have a set of wireless headphones (not Bluetooth, obviously), and they are huge and take 2 AAA batteries.

Currently BT has a full data rate of 723 kilobits per second. It has 70 frequencies that it can use, but only seven at a time. The 2.4Ghz spectrum is rather full of devices, like cordless phone, baby monitors, Wi-Fi, etc. All of which are utilizing one or more channel. What happens if you want into or by a Wi-fi hotspot, you have people accessing the Internet, people might be using their BT headset, maybe even the store has a 2.4GHz cordless phone? It wouldn't take much for all those devices to literally flood that spectrum and the voice quality would inherently suffer. The notebook users would not really notice anything; the people on the phone and the people listening to music would hear it though. While BT has the data rates, the spectrum does not have the BW for everything to be BT. Add in the cost for the headset and most people will not buy it. So that leaves a small market for this product.

 

[uptick]

Originally posted by joshuajestelle
Have you seen the Smart i-Move. This car is awesome and comes equipped with an iPod.

Josh

yes, that is pretty nifty - the built-in dock cradle. Goes to show how the iPod is becoming the defacto MP3 player worldwide!

...hmmm AAPL shares looks good

 

[windwaves]

thank you Imalave - some people here don't understand a thing, which is fine; what is annoying is that they pretend to know.
I still think it will happen, sooner rather than later. We'll see.