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'Bluetooth 5' to be Announced Next Week [Update: Bringing 2x Speed, 4x Range]

All the complaints I always read about BT amaze me. Based on the number of negative comments about it, you'd think that it was the worst technology ever created. I have never had issue with connecting to, or staying connected to, BT speakers at home, work, car, friends house, parents house, etc. If I hit the pause button on my phone while listening to music, the music coming out of the BT speaker stops immediately; no noticeable delay. I have noticed some delay when playing games, but I don't play games that have a better experience with a BT speaker, so I just use my phones speaker. I read about people losing the connection if they pick up their phone, or walk 10 feet away, or aren't able to establish a connection in the first place, and I'm just not able to relate or understand. I don't know if there are more variables to some peoples problems than are being mentioned in forums, or I'm just REALLY lucky when it comes to BT.
 
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John.B said:
Does this finally (w/ apologies to Gruber) solve the one-sensor-can-pair-to-only-one-receiver problem with <= BT 4.x?
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That was solved in Bluetooth 4.x. Only Bluetooth versions lower than 4 were so limited.
 
Bluetooth 5: faster, greater range, and still completely un-****ing-reliable
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Mr. Dee said:
Knowing Apple, they are probably gonna save this for iPhone 8, iPad Pro 3 and next years MacBooks and iMacs.
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In fairness, they had Bluetooth LE on the 4s waaaaaay early. There were no products on the market for it for about a year
 
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NT1440 said:
They were one of the first to roll Bluetooth 4.0 LE to all of their devices....
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That was in the old days, these days, they seem to be cautious about being first with new technologies. Apple use to be on the cutting edge, from eschewing Floppy for USB, no more optical drives.
 
Mr. Dee said:
That was in the old days, these days, they seem to be cautious about being first with new technologies. Apple use to be on the cutting edge, from eschewing Floppy for USB, no more optical drives.
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I'm sorry, isn't there an endless amount of bitching on these forums about headphone jacks?

It seems users here only are concerned with "cutting edge" features that look good on a spec sheet or can be described to consumers in three words or less. No one is in awe of how far ahead Apple is in the SoC department which I'd argue is cutting edge in every aspect of the word.
 
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Speed and range aren't big problems. How about making the pairing process a little less complicated than setting up a PostgreSQL server? How about making the connection process a little more reliable than a 70s American car?
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Benjamin Frost said:
It'll never be as reliable as a cable, no matter what the speed. I have no interest in Bluetooth.
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No, cables can be unreliable due to wear that wireless wouldn't suffer from. Look at Apple's Lightning cables. Or, if you've played an amplified musical instrument, you've probably gone through lots of 1/4" cables. Bluetooth isn't any better, but it could be.
 
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I was wondering about this... if Apple was going to try to create their own wireless codec or something. Luckily they worked with a standards body. It's weird that they didn't do that for lightening since they basically wrote the USBC spec and are pushing it so much with Macs. I wonder what the decision process was for that.
 
pmau said:
More bandwidth always requires more power ...
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Not true in the case of analog compared to digital cellular. And if they use an efficient compression scheme in bluetooth 5.0, we could actually see less bandwidth used to provide more data. Now as far as range goes, it's hard to improve range without boosting power needs.
 
Jakexb said:
I was wondering about this... if Apple was going to try to create their own wireless codec or something. Luckily they worked with a standards body. It's weird that they didn't do that for lightening since they basically wrote the USBC spec and are pushing it so much with Macs. I wonder what the decision process was for that.
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Macs and desktops have to maintain some compatibility with the outside world. iOS devices don't. They were designed from the ground up to be wireless mobile devices. Durability is the key factor in any connector used with the device.

Add to that desktops and Laptops need a lot more bandwidth to do many of the things they are are tasked with. Mobile devices just don't need the same requirements, although Apple planned ahead and now Lightning 2 offers USB 3 bandwidth.

But I don't really see Apple "pushing" USB-C on the Macs, yet. I see one new notebook with it, going into its second year without any others having joined it. And it's not on any desktops yet. USB-C is long way from becoming the standard, but either way, it's a much better solution for mobile devices which need the bandwidth, versatility, and compatibility with other computing platforms.

Apple likely designed Lightning with dropping the headphone jack at some point in the future. USB-C was probably not -- audio was an afterthought, or they might have designed a much more durable connector.
 
Sunday Ironfoot said:
Here's hoping for uncompressed wireless audio.
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Just what I was thinking! This is an interesting update, I hope it starts being incorporated into all Apple's upcoming products that have Bluetooth. I'm also really hoping the rumoured major updates to iTunes and Music will finally include the option for downloading and streaming high-res audio. There's an opportunity for that now the iPhone 7 is likely to drop the headphone jack. High-res audio could be a value added option used as an incentive to increase adoption...but these are just an audiophile's dream on my part, that Apple will likely not adopt in the end. But I'm still hoping...
 
modeyabsolom said:
Just what I was thinking! This is an interesting update, I hope it starts being incorporated into all Apple's upcoming products that have Bluetooth. I'm also really hoping the rumoured major updates to iTunes and Music will finally include the option for downloading and streaming high-res audio. There's an opportunity for that now the iPhone 7 is likely to drop the headphone jack. High-res audio could be a value added option used as an incentive to increase adoption...but these are just an audiophile's dream on my part, that Apple will likely not adopt in the end. But I'm still hoping...
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I'm wondering if they will also ditch the audio jack on the Mac.
 
slayerizer said:
I'm wondering if they will also ditch the audio jack on the Mac.
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Yes, eventually. However, I fully expect Lightning to replace the 3.5mm jack on the rMB, and they will add Lightning to all new Macs going forward. But, if a device has the room for the 3.5mm jack, I would expect Apple to retain it through the transition. There's likely no reason to remove it from the iPhone Plus, or the iPads -- yet. But in 2-3 years once all the iPhones have dropped the 3.5mm jack, then I imagine Apple will be willing to move their products entirely wireless and digital.
 
Kermit262 said:
Where there's a cable, there's a tangled mess waiting to happen. I have no interest in cables.
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There are a lot of people, like you, that put convenience over quality. But there are others that don't so what is your point? We get it, you don't care about the quality of the music you listen to. Good. Now we know!
 
What about latency? I'd like to get some wireless Bluetooth headphones so I can play guitar through my computer app, but if there is any latency, that would make it almost impossible to play live while listening through Bluetooth.
 
Mac 128 said:
Yes, eventually. However, I fully expect Lightning to replace the 3.5mm jack on the rMB, and they will add Lightning to all new Macs going forward. But, if a device has the room for the 3.5mm jack, I would expect Apple to retain it through the transition. There's likely no reason to remove it from the iPhone Plus, or the iPads -- yet. But in 2-3 years once all the iPhones have dropped the 3.5mm jack, then I imagine Apple will be willing to move their products entirely wireless and digital.
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You mean I'd be able to charge my Pencil on my mac? ;)
 
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