After years of waiting, Bluetooth devices are finally on the market in significant numbers. But Larry Garfield isn't convinced that it's living up to expectations, and is here to tell you why.
They said 2000 would be the year of Bluetooth. Then they said 2001 would be. Then 2002 was to be the year Bluetooth took off. I don't know who "they" are, but boy were they wrong. It's now 2003, and while we do at long last have Bluetooth products on the market, the potential of Bluetooth is still not being fully utilized. And mostly, it's due to laziness and short-sightedness on the part of the companies making Bluetooth hardware.
I recently started using a new Bluetooth mobile phone in conjunction with a Bluetooth-sporting Palm OS handheld. By and large, it's a good phone (aside from some antenna issues), but it does way too much. Why am I paying for a phone that has a web browser and games on it, when I have a Palm that does both of those far better? And more importantly, while dialing the phone from my Palm address book is neato-cool, it doesn't help my Caller ID, which only has about six entries in it so far. My Palm has over six hundred. And no, I am not going to transfer them all over.
Here's what I want from a Bluetooth-based phone: A dumb phone. Not a smartphone, a dumb phone. It should have number and dialing buttons, it should have phone configuration features (and an easy-access vibrate mode switch), it should have a small emergency address book, a digital data connection, and a Bluetooth connection. That's it. (Well, maybe polyphonic ring tones, but that's where I draw the line.) Everything else should route through to my handheld. If a call comes in, connect to my Palm and look up the number there, in my ONE address book (with a small subset on the phone for if I forget my Palm). Let me attach a voice-dial function to anyone in my Palm address book, transparently. That's it. MP3 playback, data entry, surfing, e-mail, SMS, let me do that all from my handheld, where I have a real input system (Graffiti and Jot are a godsend compared to T9), and route it there automatically. The Bluetooth spec has standards for doing most of this already, let's use them.
It's not just the PDA-phone connection that is woefully under-utilized. The PDA-PC connection is equally lame. It takes 2-3 separate pieces of 3rd party software for me to create a flaky Bluetooth serial port connection from my Palm to my PC so that I can surf the net from my Palm. Get with the program, here. Serial port is so 20th century (we love to abuse that phrase), and the Bluetooth spec includes LAN Client and LAN Server profiles which could greatly ease PDA-through-PC Internet connections for those wanting their portable device to be just that - connectivity included. Why are they so rarely supported? I want my handheld Internet connection, and I want it out of the box, now.
And don't get me started on HotSync. Originally a superb system, it hasn't evolved with the times. HotSyncing over Bluetooth requires first giving up the ability to HotSync older serial devices on the same PC, and then requires some dancing around with linking up COM Serial ports on the PC between two virtual connections. I thought we left manual COM port configuration behind along with DOS, big hairdos, and disco balls. (Are you listening, PalmSource?)
Eventually, companies will get Bluetooth support right, and my phone, handheld, headset, PC, and laptop will all merge into one seamless and synergistic cloud of complementary systems that works for me transparently without every feature overlapping and without me having to do all the hard work. At the current rate, I estimate that will happen about the same time as wrist watches all start using gas-plasma displays costing under a dollar. Please, please, please, someone prove me wrong.
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Warning: include(/usr/www/users/infotv/us/ssi/views_right_promo.html) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/infotv/news/n/3977.html on line 263
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/www/users/infotv/us/ssi/views_right_promo.html' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/www/users/infotv/news/n/3977.html on line 263
|
|
|
Archive