iPhone and Bluetooth 2.x+EDR

By David Ciccone, posted Thursday, Jul. 26th, 2007
Reader Comments: 6

One of the features NO one is speaking about is the built in Bluetooth 2.x+EDR spec in the Apple iPhone. If you don't know what the EDR spec is:

This version, specified in November 2004, is backward-compatible with 1.1. The main enhancement is the introduction of an enhanced data rate (EDR) of 3.0 Mbit/s. This has the following effects.

Three times faster transmission speed—up to 10 times in certain cases (up to 2.1 Mbit/s).
Lower power consumption through a reduced duty cycle.
Simplification of multi-link scenarios due to more available bandwidth.
Further improved (bit error rate) performance.

What prompted me to investigate this specification was the recent purchase I made for my iPhone which was the Apple Bluetooth Headset. Once I unboxed the headset and powered the headset on the iPhone immediately paired with it! It was quite weird since I never have seen a headset pair with a phone without manually forcing it to discover. Where could Apple be going with this built in technology? Could this functionality we see in the GearLive video be in the iPhone already and just needs to be turned on? Knowing Steve Jobs I bet you I could be right.. What are your thoughts?

I think the lower power consumption and 0 step pairing is enough of a reason by itself. Apple devices are all about ease of use. We take the usual pairing steps for granted but the average person sees this as a real pain...

Posted by RHoppas, Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

I could see this being used to sync over BT and possibly for sharing content between iPhones. Although the Zune does it way faster via WiFi, but of course there are the known content limitiations on the Zune for transferring between devices.

Posted by Physboy, Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

All that will require is to install the A2DP driver. However, the EDR function is not necessary in that particular case. I think Apple has bigger plans for the EDR portion.

Posted by JNGold, Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

Most likely it will be used to stream music to wireless headphones.

Posted by , Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

"So I'm curious, why does the iPhone have EDR? "

Perhaps, some at Apple have "forward thinking". Just because you or I see nothing that the tech takes advantage of right now, doesn't mean much. Perhaps there is something in the pipeline that someday will take adavantage - how about a link to iTV or something? Who knows?

Posted by JNGold, Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

Why would you need EDR on the iPhone? From what I know, the iPhone doesn't support a 3G connection and it doesn't allow for sync via BT (at least, I don't think it does). EDR is not required for a a2dp profile (in case Apple decides on adding that BT profile in the future). DUN doesn't require EDR, because it's dial-up. So I'm curious, why does the iPhone have EDR? What does it matter? It seems to me it's like having a 427 Cobra without a steering wheel or tires. "But look, it's a 427. Think how fast it'll go." "But it has no tires or a steering wheel. You can't drive it."

I'm sure I'm missing something, so please, someone enlighten me.

Posted by weatheryoko, Friday, Jul. 27th, 2007

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