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Wireless Networking Hardware

Is Bluetooth Dead? 697

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stopgap-on-the-way-to-wireless-networking dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to the EETimes, Bluetooth is dead. From the article: "In a few short years, many will look back on Bluetooth as a lesson on marketing gone awry". So what do ya'll think? Does he have a point, or is Bluetooth not quite dead yet?"
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Is Bluetooth Dead? More

Is Bluetooth Dead?

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  • ...guess that means that BSD supports it?

    • Re:Bluetooth is dead... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kwerle ( 39371 ) <kurt@CircleW.org> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:32PM (#7223846) Homepage Journal
      ....guess that means that BSD supports it?

      Indeed it does. Just as USB and Firewire struggled in the beginning, so it goes with Bluetooth. Apple has picked up the torch, however, so I expect that in a couple of years there will be plenty of PCs (especially notebooks) that support it.
      • Bluetooth is dying because the compatability problems that have been described since the beginning.

        Some predictions have suggested compatability problems with up to 80% of the devices sold. Others have been yelling about the low level of security...

        Bluetooth was a kickass idea... that is dying because the details were not ironed out.

        Davak
      • My Powerbook has Bluetooth. The thing is, not one device other than my Powerbook has it. The only device I'm even thinking of getting that could have it is a new cellphone.

        I'd like to have some sort of connection between the laptop and phone for doing internet connectivity and, perhaps most importantly, managing the phone's contact list. But a USB wire would do the trick just fine, as it does for my Palm.

        And, since it interferes with 802.11 which I use nearly 100% of the time, I'm certainly not motiv

  • it probably just needs a filling or 2.

    maybe deep root planing? that usually works for me.

  • What's in a name? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonym1ty ( 534715 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:29PM (#7223804) Homepage Journal
    Maybe it's because of it's name. We already have enough people who fear they may get bitten by their computer. If you were one, would you buy it teeth?
    • Bluetooth was named after a Viking who was a Danish King, his name was Harald Blatand. Blatand was loosely translated into Bluetooth, now I hear you asking why the heck is it called after the Danish King, as I read somewhere, Harald Blatand had united Demark and Norway, so as the wireless technology which units people.
      Weird huh?
  • How about Red Teeth? Or a low-powered, secured 802.11b? Then again, I am seeing more and more pBT products i.e. cell phones and PDAs anbd GPS.
  • I really hope it's not dead, because I just bought a wireless Bluetooth keyboard for my laptop, and a USB Bluetooth dongle to go with it.
  • The problem was that the chipsets to support Bluetooth were too expensive. If it's not cheap enough, no one will support it, and thus it won't get any cheaper. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Also, times that I had to use Bluetooth for research products, the thing never worked right. Anything between different vendors was a joke.

  • Great name, white human (Score:3, Funny)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:31PM (#7223827) Homepage

    It amazes me how bad technically oriented people are at marketing. What's next, Redfoot?
  • It still works on my Sony T68i cell phone everyday. I sync it to my Mac on a daily basis and control iTunes with it. Its a good technology for things like this.

    If its dead, what is going to replace it?

  • A year ago, an owner of a local computer store here picked up about 5,000 units of Toshiba Bluetooth client connectivity cards at almost $2.00 a piece. He was amazed at this price and of course jumped on it.

    Before his company closed, I think he was only able to sell about 20 units over a 1 year period.

    Personally, I think Toshiba has known for a while Blue Tooth tanked and was trying to cut their losses.

  • Yes! (Score:3, Funny)

    by saden1 ( 581102 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:31PM (#7223832)
    IEEE 802.11 has taken over! It is everywhere now. even my microwave oven is IEEE 802.11 enabled.

  • So what's taking it's place? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@nOSpAM.etoyoc.com> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:31PM (#7223833) Homepage Journal
    So what competing technology is stepping in to take Bluetooth's place? It's low power, short range, and doesn't need a fancy access point.

    Come on people, electricity took 50 years to become commonplace. This is technology, not pet rocks.

    • "low power"?
      That's its problem - it's not really low powered. The earphones die rather quickly. I'm set to get one of those battery belts that the TV guys wear to power their lights.

      Dead?
      Like the Internet is dead because Sun isn't trading for 500? Everyone please turn in your connections. Nothing to see here.

      I expect that, like any new technology, we'll be seeing more and more bluetooth enabled devices. Keyboards and earphones are one piece (and perhaps useful enough to get it out there en mass)

    • "So what competing technology is stepping in to take Bluetooth's place? It's low power, short range, and doesn't need a fancy access point."

      802.11a/b/g don't need access points either in ad-hoc mode.

      As for what will take its place, I think the issue is that by the time Bluetooth made it to mass market, something already had taken its place for one of its primary applications -- wireless networking. 802.11b was cheap, faster, had better range, and was established.

  • Apple (Score:2)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
    Apple has just started to get interested [apple.com], so I don't think it's dead yet. If Apple comes up with a killer app for it (which they might now that they've started looking), the rest of the industry will follow.
  • You know, I don't thing I have ever actually seen a bluetooth device other than on a web page or two. How many of you have?
    • Two:

      My iBook with a Bluetooth Dongle and my T68i.

      Currently looking at a Bluetooth Keyboard, like the new one that Logitech announced today.
  • Yep. Dead. It was low-power, incompatible with longer-range tech, and overhyped. Why have point-to-point RF IrDA when you can have wireless Ethernet to already connected networks, including your machine?

  • I find it quite useful for syncing my contacts on my cell phone with my mac at home. Isn't a technology dead when no one uses it any more? I still use it, and Apple still seems behind it, since they just released a new keyboard and mouse that use it (no one button jokes, those are getting old). I think reports about bluetooth being dead should be declared dead.

  • As Usual.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by swdunlop ( 103066 ) <swdunlop AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:34PM (#7223889) Homepage
    It might take a little while for the PC world to come onboard with the technology, yet, there are companies that have adopted Bluetooth early, and seem to be putting some weight behind it. Apple [apple.com] has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes.

    Next time that I'm ready to upgrade my palm, as they tend to meet unfortunate fates while I travel, I'll probably pick up a bluetooth palm so I can carry one less cable with me. The cell phone world also makes use of bluetooth now to avoid cables.

    It's just the conventional PC world that is taking its sweet time adopting Bluetooth. Considering that the market for wireless keyboards and mice definately hasn't gone away for Logitech, there is still a niche for bluetooth. Now that the marketing hype is fading away, the useful devices are slowly becoming available.
    • Wireless keyboards and mice are just toys. There's no real advantage to them at all... just more headache (yet another thing to configure/put batteries in/go wrong). Besides, wireless keyboards have been around since the beginning of time. I had a great one with my PCjr. Worked like a champ, but I really didn't care that it was wireless.

    • The Death Was Predicted (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Davak ( 526912 )
      Troubles with bluetooth was predicted in November 1,2000

      CARLSBAD, CA -- When a moderator at Red Herring's NDA conference on Monday asked an audience of entrepreneurs, VCs, and vendors what business models will come out of the Bluetooth short-range wireless protocol, the room fell silent.
      Finally, an undaunted Bluetooth entrepreneur leapt to break the silence. But the long pause when a roomful of 50 supposedly forward-thinking technologists and investors was struck silent indicates that Bluetooth has a lon
    • Number of button?
    • Apple has recently added a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to their line of products, making my powerbook's bluetooth chipset actually useful. The mouse is very well designed for use by travellers, although someone here is sure to bitch about the number of buttons within minutes

      Microsoft beat them to it [microsoft.com]

  • I have a Nokia 3650 (great phone, btw) and the bluetooth is great for some things, but painful for others.

    Finding a BT headset that would work with my phone was a royal PITA. It seems that Nokia has a funky handsfree profile that most headsets won't play nice with. The headsets pair just fine, but then won't do anything useful.

    Jabra has upgraded the BT200 to be compatible, but some that are in stores are the old version and some are the new version.

    I do love the ability to automagically sync my palm, my
  • One of the problems with bluetooth is that it's so complicated to implement. If you download the spec it's massive, just looking at the contents gives you a headache. This complexity also makes it expensive.

  • Please explain how Bluetooth is dead when:

    • Apple Computer is supporting Bluetooth in all current Powerbooks, which represent 50%+ of their sales, and many new laptops have Bluetooth as an option
    • Apple, Microsoft, Kensington, etc either have keyboards+mice out already or are releasing them soon
    • Siemens, Sony/Ericcson, and Nokia all support Bluetooth on several models each. Bluetooth adoption in the mobile market in Europe has been going strong for quite some time now.
    • Palm, Compaq/HP, etc all have PDA mod
  • I think the thing to keep in mind that WPANs aren't dead, but who knows what the future of Bluetooth will be. WPANs are sweet, though. I've got Bluetooth in my phone, PDA, and Laptop. I can use the phone to access the Internet, sync everything wirelessly, and share information. It's pretty cool.

    I've seen the news for a while that 802.11 is killing Bluetooth. I just don't get it - 802.11 is great, but when I'm out somewhere with no WAP in site I can use bluetooth to access the net through my phone just
    • You only see those news in North America, the reason for that being that people here don't seem to grasp what Bluetooth is. It is not a replacement for Wireless Network Access but rather a way to get rid of all the clutter on your desk.

      I like bluetooth, I even browse the web while I am sitting in a coffee shop that does not have (or wants to charge extra) for Internet Access.
  • I think bluetooth is the greatest, most of my friends have at least a bluetooth cellphone and many also use a bluetooth PDA,

    My phone automaticly syncs to my pc when I sit at my desk and I beam contacts and photos from my sonyericsson T610 to other people all the time

    for me bluetooth is the new killer app that made me get a 2.5G cell phone
  • The author says the application stack was the best part, but the PHY was bad. I say exactly the opposite. The 2.4GHz phy work that was done was actually quite good for a personal area network. It's deployable anywhere in the world (2.4GHz is a worldwide ISM band) and low power. However, the application stack got so big that the processing power required killed the node cost. This was supposed to be less than $5US per node, but ended up over $10US.

    Anyway, it's pretty much dead. Too big for it's britch

  • Idiocy - bluetooth just taking off (Score:5, Informative)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:39PM (#7223941) Homepage
    No idea about the States (I imagine most of the below applies), but certainly in Europe Bluetooth is really just taking off. It's not computers per se that are driving the uptake however, it's mobile phones.

    Most of the medium to high-end phones sold now have Bluetooth capabilities. Even if this isn't used for more than connecting to a hands-free device, it's still a use of Bluetooth. The UK, for example, is about to introduce a law giving penalties to drivers caught using mobiles phone handsets themselves. The fines do not apply to certain hands-free devices, so an increase in Bluetooth car kits is foreseen.

    Back to the computing front, and we're on to synchronisation. I understand a number of people are having hassle on the PC, however I imagine that will be fixced at some point. On the Mac bluetooth synchronisation is completely seamless - it is so totally transparent that I don't even think about it. Then there's file transfer - I use bluetooth to transfer photos and video clips off the phone (3650) to my laptop, and use bluetooth to transfer files back onto the phone (normally C64 games for use in an emulator).

    The guy who wrote the article needs to get out more.

    , Cheers,
    Ian

    • We don't have that in the US. Our cell phone providers are stuck in the eighties, and just give us basic services. Sure, they spoon feed text messaging, but we have less than half of the cool stuff available in Europe. Our phones are crap, GSM is just started to be deployed, and we still have three different types of cell networks out here (CDMA, TDMA, Sprint PCS, and now GSM). It's a real mess.

      The only commercial product I've seen was a bluetooth headset, and there's like one phone available here with
  • My Sony TG60 connects with my Ericsson 68i over bluetooth.

    I can then SSH into any of my servers anywhere with the little keyboard on the TG60.

    No fucking way I'm giving that up - it's really nice and usefull.
  • It can't be quite that dead yet. Heck, I'm posting off my Zaurus using BT to my T68i now. Works like a champ.
  • I use 802.11b type devices and not Bluetooth type ones, but in all honesty their are a lot of people and companies (Apple Computers comes to mind) who use Bluetooth in their systems and PDA's. Of course they (at least Apple I know for sure) do use 802.11b (Airport) devices as well.

    I think Bluetooth is also looked at as sort of an underdog competitor with 802.11b(g)(a) wireless standards and therefore a lot of people flock to it.

    Of course weather or not Bluetooth exists or doesn't makes no difference to me

  • IRDA is dead, long live Bluetooth(aka DIE CABLES!) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:44PM (#7223989)
    I hate pointing my stuff at my other stuff if I want to transfer some stuff. I don't gotta point nothin' at nothin' if I use Bluetooth. For that reason alone, I love it and will continue to seek it out on the stuff I buy.

    Don't even get me started about cables either... not even worth the keystrokes. Plain proof the guy who wrote this is an idiot is this line:

    "And what's wrong with a wired headset, which is cheaper, better-sounding, lighter and more reliable-and without the silly blinking LED? Gratuitous Bluetooth? You bet."

    All the people who like wires raise your hands! I thought not.

    TW
  • Blue tooth is dead because Apple is the big PC maker pushing it, and:
    1. Apple is beleagured.
    2. Mac OSX is based on BSD and BSD is dying.
    3. Some guy out there can't copy files from the hard drive of 1994 era computer running OSX, so OSX is slow, and its Bluetooth support won't work on a MacPlus.
    4. The logo is stupid.

    Fortunately, you have people like me around to point this all out to you. :-)

  • because Bluetooth [theregister.co.uk]
    cars would be a killer app
  • Right now Bluetooth can exist because it has many, very specialized profiles that allow building relatively simple devices. IP based technologies like WLAN need more expensive controllers. A few euros/dollars matter for devices like keyboard and headsets, and IP-based hardware would be too expensive.
    But in a few years the price difference will be neglegible, and then Bluetooth will go away, because TCP/IP is better known and less complex. Bluetooth is not alone, USB and Firewire will also disappear (or at l
  • I hated the idea of bluetooth when I first heard about it. Why would anyone want short communications with anything? Then it started coming out and I started messing with it.

    Bluetooth is cool technology. I have it linked up with my Powerbook so I can control iTunes and my screen saver based on my (actually my phone's, but it's in my pocket) proximity to the laptop.

    Incoming calls mute my music and display the caller id on my laptop. No wires, no mess, and little noticeable additional power usage (my P800 h
  • It looks like IR, WiFi and 802.11 are crushing Bluetooth in all areas related to computers.

    But on wireless headsets for mobile phones Bluetooth is alive and kicking. Nokia, Sony Ericson, Samsung, Siemens, Motorola, Plantronics and Nextlink all delivers headsets based on Bluetooth.
    Not very popular in US yet, but as these items shrink in size and price they will increase their popularity. A little bird whispered in my ear that these gadgets are selling pretty well in Scandinavia, Japan, and South Korea.

  • It's been a long time coming, but I think that Bluetooth is now just starting to live. Like any new technology, the problem is that people won't buy in until enough stuff supports it. Calling Bluetooth dead is like calling USB dead 4 years ago.

    Right now, I will never buy another cell phone that doesn't support bluetooth. I just got a 15" G4 PowerBook with integrated bluetooth, and I know that it will Just Work(tm) with any of the bluetooth phones that I've used (Ericsson T68, SonyEricsson P800.) I can

  • Only in the USA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @04:48PM (#7224034) Homepage
    Bluetooth is dead -- or rather stillborn -- only in the United States.

    And it is all Qualcomm's fault.

    It's been years -- and years -- since folks overseas and using GSM phones have been able to use bluetooth on a daily basis. Since the US has stuck mostly with CDMA cellular networks (hey, I use Verizon myself, the coverage can't be beat) that means they've stuck with Qualcomm chips.

    Every six months a rumor comes around that FINALLY Qualcomm is going to release a CDMA chipset with bluetooth support, and every six months it turns out to be a pipe dream.

    I would love to give a nice kick in the nuts to Qualcomm's entire management team. And to the heads of Verizon and Sprint for not demanding 2 years ago that Qualcomm get off their asses and integrate this tech.

    Everybody spent so much time and money in the last few years on 2.5/3G networks that are completely unprofitable because it never occurred to them that surfing the web from your PHONE was going to suck. But if I could use my computer or even Palm/PPC without needing a custom $60 cable, it might be useful!

    And now the cell companies get to watch as 802.11 starts to eat away at their potential data business, when we wouldn't have NEEDED 802.11 hotspots on every block if our damn phones worked the way they were supposed to 3 years ago! /grr
    • Preach on, brother. I hate our cellular networks with a passion I used to reserve for used car salesmen. The providers tried to lock us in by using completely different networks, now we're heavily screwed.

      All of the marketers and product engineers are complete morons here in the US. Web surfing on a tiny screen is worthless; integration to existing technology should have been priority one. Now I've got so much crap on my belt, Batman would blush. Why can't I have a phone/pager/pda/remote control in on

  • There will be some more interesting BT devices coming out in the next year. I'm working on some of them.

    However, some of the original applications envisioned for BT haven't panned out. Boo hoo.

    It's a handy protocol for some types of short-range wireless, where something like 802.11 would be too heavy-weight. There is definitely a niche for it.

    And as far as 802.15.3a goes... I personally witnessed the flame fest on the IEEE mailing list, I really don't think it was travel restrictions that preven

  • I'm typing this over a bluetooth enabled keyboard, to my bluetooth enabled laptop [apple.com]. And you know, I just cannot figure out how my phone [sonyericsson.com] and laptop keep that darned address book synchronized [apple.com]. It really has me puzzled. Whatever it is [bluetooth.org] is sure is useful.
    Hmm. let me wiggle over to check the links here, using my mouse [microsoft.com].
    Let's not even talk about a headset [sonyericsson.com] or two.
    Definately dead. Yup.
    Whatever.
  • It's not going to make "a dent in the universe", as Steve Jobs would put it, and it's not going to kill 802.11 or start another bubble or anything revolutionary like that, but it's here to stay. Adding Bluetooth to an existing product or upcoming design is routine now; it's built into all new Macs and a lot of PCs. One of these days it will just be everywhere and people will use it without a second though and demand it as a standard feature. Bluetooth will just end up like Firewire: There's no massive marke

  • Dead. (Score:2)

    by zapp ( 201236 )
    I would say it is dead. It has been out for a long long time now, and I have never personally seen a need to own a blue tooth enabled device. What few things are available supporting it are obscenely expensive ($60 for a cell phone bluetooth headset? just to avoid a wire?)

    However, There are some driving forces behind it still. Like the screenshots for Longhorn that show Windows, a PDA, an MP3 player, and a digital camera all communicating wirelessly.

    By the way, anyone notice that as of this comment there
  • Bluetooth is a neat technology, however most of the Bluetooth stacks for Windows are still quite weak. Operation is inconsistent with the rest of the system.

    Unless Microsoft adds mainstream Bluetooth support or empowers another developer to do this, it may never be fully accepted.

    Bluetooth is a breeze on the Mac, and it's about as painless as 802.11b for Linux, but those two markets simply aren't enough to support the kind of varied peripheral market that's needed for this to blossom.

  • Bluetooth had a lot of intial hype, which set the consumer and manufacturer expectations too high. The standards group went way overboard and made a very complex spec, and the final silicon was far more expensive and power hungry than initially promised. Furthermore, the complex spec is a PITA to implement, and even though the spec is huge, there's lots of wiggle room that makes it difficult for different manufacturers to develop compatible products.

    Having said that, Bluetooth is improving and seeing wider
  • This appears to be a similar case to MiniDisc [minidisc.org]. In the USA, it never seemed to catch on, but here in TheRestOfTheWorld, we lapped it up.

    A large percentage of new mobile phones from the major manufacturers are all equipped with Bluetooth, and combined with GPRS [webopedia.com], it's an ideal way to connect your laptop to the internet when you're on the move.

    It allows my calendar on my Mac to synchronise with the calendar on my organiser, it lets me send files to and from my office PC without the need for a network, and i

  • .. and look forward to using it in the future as well.

    you may have 'better' alternatives but bluetooth is here NOW, it WORKS and is USEFUL. so no, it's not dead.

    it's just dead damn easy to write about subjects that 'will most certainly' fail, and make up some reasons to back it up. nobody will come back saying "haa haa" even if they don't suddenly die(sun is dying, apple is dying bsd is dying, linux is dying windows is dying, computer industry is dying, car industry is dying, fsp games are dying, p2p is
  • Considering there are a number of handy BlueTooth devices on the market, and there seems to be new things supporting it on a regular basis, I'd say that it's doing okay.

    That is, unless you are one of those people who rely on the number of buzzwords in the press to determine how well a particular technology is doing.

    It was over-hyped.. But so was 802.11B, nVidia, etc. But what wasn't hyped to death a couple of years ago?

    As far as marketing departments were concerned (1998), by now we would be magically fl
  • Does he use also terms like "combustion horse and buggy" and "electronic slide rule"?
  • Anybody who thinks that 802.11 is an alternative to Bluetooth doesn't know what they are talking about. 802.11 is power hungry, it is a pain to configure, it requires a complete TCP/IP stack, and it requires separate 802.1x services in order to be acceptably secure. Right now, there is no shipping standard that is even close to being an alternative to Bluetooth.

    Bluetooth, in contrast, is pretty miserly with power, it's trivial to configure, even securely, it can be attached to anything with a serial lin
  • ... to pronounce it dead when I think just about everyone here would agree it was never even close to alive? Does anyone use bluetooth?? Did anyone ever use it?

  • How long did USB take to pick up? How long did you have those useless connectors on your system, with nothing to plug into them?

    802.11 is a poor substitue for Bluetooth, because of its much higher power requirements. Bluetooth was designed for what it does: provide low speed, low power, peripheral linking.

    Just because the author doesn't see a use for wireless gizmos doesn't mean they aren't going to pick up. I like the idea of a standard protocol that can allow my phone to talk to my PDA, to my computer,

  • I remember the big push for the Bluetooth standard years ago, and then nothing really coming out. Now I have a 17" PowerBook with Bluetooth built-in. I picked up the MS Bluetooth mouse. I really like my wireless mouse. Before you would have to plug in a dongle, and may as well just have a wired mouse that doesn't use batteries. Additionally I have Bluetooth in my mobile phone. I connect to the internet when I am out and about thru GPRS on my mobile. Its really nice to be able to just leave it in my p
  • Just bought my M$ Bluetooth mouse for my iBook yesterday. Its not too bad, and this is coming from a M$ hater.

    I like how Apple puts it. Its to USB/Firewire as 802.11x is to 10/100/1000 mbit ethernet.
  • You must be new around here - when asking such a question/making such a claim, the proper format is:

    Bluetooth is dead; long live bluetooth!

    Just FYI.

  • USB (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pimpinmonk ( 238443 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @05:04PM (#7224182)
    the same was said about USB. It took years for products to reach market, and years more until things became mainstream. Why? The cost far outweighed the convenience, and software support was sketchy. This mirrors bluetooth--it is definitely a better technology, but it is not fully supported by commodity hardware and software (with Apple leading the way, though) and it is dang expensive! I would have loved a lushious SonyEricsson phone with bluetooth and a headset, but it's $300. Within the reach of some, but not enough to make the market big enough to classify as "taking off."

  • Interesting. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Chardros ( 3099 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @05:36PM (#7224458)
    I use bluetooth every day. I sync my PDA and my phone with my laptop. I connect to the internet via my cell phone (gprs) from my laptop and pda while on the road. I use my bluetooth headset while on the run. When I climb in my car, my cell phone negotiates with my bluetooth car kit, and incoming calls mute my stereo, and come over the in-car speaker... even if I forget to cradle my phone. It's thought free.

    Bluetooth has made a lot of things simpler for me. If 802.11 replaces all those applications, great. But for what it was intended, bluetooth seems to be doing a fine job for me.
  • My new Apple Al PowerBook just shipped today, just in time for its Bluetooth to be dead, kaput, no longer a viable solution?
    Bluetooh, I hardly knew yee... thee? thou?

  • Compliments not Competes with 802.11 (Score:3, Informative)

    by ebresie ( 123014 ) on Wednesday October 15, 2003 @05:39PM (#7224486) Homepage Journal
    I think he misses the point. He indicates that one of the reasons its dying is because 802.11x related products out doing the bluetooth products.

    One thing he fails to mention is that bluetooth is intended for short distances not long distances like 802.11. Because of this, the power requirements are much less, which means you can use the bluetooth products without replacing batteries or recharging for much longer periods of time.

    I will admit, I have no bluetooth, but I look forward to a new phone with bluetooth capabilities possible.

  • North America != The World (Score:3, Insightful)

    by splateagle ( 557203 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @03:38AM (#7227562)
    *sigh* face it folks North America lags at least five years behind the leading markets for mobile technology (Asia and Europe) where Bluetooth is not only not dead, but in the lpast year or so it's begun reaching beyond the early adopters to become pretty much mass market.

    As a couple of other people have pointed out, this is likely to be spurred on faster now in Europe at least by increasing legislation about mobiles and driving, (which is already pushing up sales of Bluetooth headsets here in the UK) as well as the steady growth in mobile multimedia - and yes I know that in the States and Canada you guys just want a cheap phone for voice calls, but believe it or not elsewhere on the planet this stuff is really taking off.

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