Vincent Oberle’s blog
Bluetooth 2.0 in the new Powerbooks
A few days ago Apple announced an upgrade in its Powerbook laptops. People noticed the increase in processor speed (and absence of G5), memory upgrade, etc. but the introduction of Bluetooth 2.0 didn’t make the big news.
But Apple is the first to introduce Bluetooth 2.0 in a laptop. As The Wireless Weblog reports:
The new version of Bluetooth, which is called Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), supports max speeds of 3 Mbps. This faster data rate will support higher quality music on wireless headphones, super-fast syncing with smartphones and PDAs, and higher data rates on Bluetooth 2.0 Internet uplinks, like those used on cellphone 3G “modems”
I think Bluetooth 2.0 headsets will be very successful. People are getting rid of wires and the headphones wires is particularly annoying (I often have to undo the nodes of my iPod headphones). Bluetooth 1.1 data rate wasn’t high enough to make wireless headphones for listening to music, yet the most successful Bluetooth devices are Bluetooth headset for mobile phones.
Apple will probably introduce an iPod with Bluetooth and wireless white headphones. Not that they have any choice: I have predicted that mobile phones will eat the music player market as flash memory becomes available in several GB and at low-prices. Many mobile phones are going to incorporate Bluetooth 2.0 and the offer of the phone as music player will be pretty attractive.
February 4th, 2005 05:17
Just to clarify, they aren’t the first to offer Bluetooth 2.0, just [possibly] the first to offer it standard. Dell, for example, offer Bluetooth 2.0 upgrades to their equivalent laptops.
April 13th, 2005 16:14
Nice but too late.
Bluetooth has not been embraced by PC makers, it is just an option. BT 2.0 will not change this as Intel and other major players have with the introduction of Wireless USB effectively killed all the long-time interest in BT. Since WLAN already is firmly in place for network access, BT got squeezed from that angle as well.
The BT promotors have had essentially all the misfortunes you can have, from slow and buggy implementations to the birth of competing technologies created by their own allies!