iPhone Bluetooth
 

Both my partners at work have recently gotten iPhones.

I have been setting them up with our google calendar and contacts etc.

As I was working on porting contacts from the old phones to the iPhones. It became clear that the iPhone is unable to connect to another phone via bluetooth. A little reading indicates this is true for any bluetooth device with a file transfer option,

Seems like a hell of a limitation to place on the phone?

Anyway fixed with ease, I just connected their old (dumb) phones to my N900 pulled all the contacts into a vcf file onto my device then imported them into google contacts to sync with the iPhone.

But crippling bluetooth in this way seems a little OTT to me?

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

I thought the same thing when I tried to send a small mp3 file to a friend with an iPhone. Couldn't do it via bluetooth, so I just emailed it to him. Which worked fine. I wanted him to be able to use it as a ring tone. But iPhone doesn't allow you to save the attachment!! WTF?

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

There is a Looooooong list of devices that have the FTP profile disabled in their Bluetooth stack.

Many operators in the US do this to dumb phones to make sure that users have to use the carrier's overpriced options for ring tones and wallpapers. Other operators just do this to be jerks.

It's actives like this that lead most Americans to equate Bluetooth only to wireless headset functionality with no regards to the stacks otherwise innate ability to do FTP, DUN, Auto-sync, etc...

And really, at this point, is anyone really surprised when they find a standard smart phone/computer technology that has been arbitrarily removed by Daddy Jobs from the iPhone?

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

Ha that's exactly why, and a lot of other stuff that's wrong with it, I switched to N900 :D But I'm sure their's an app you can buy to do it...

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

Interesting.

This was truly the first time that I had come accross a phone that would not even recognize another device though.

All bluetooth phones I have used before have the ability to send contacts back and forth etc.

This one would not even recognize the device as existing. The LG would see the ipone and could pair but the iphone could not see the LG and when you tried to connect from the LG it failed.

That is a little more extreme then disabling a protocol.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

sounds like the iphone was set to ignore certain types of devices.

basically, each device with a bluetooth radio have a class code set, either permanently or user changeable. The N800 for instance, id itself as part of the PDA class. My SE phone id itself as a phone. My linux running desktop computer on the other hand can have its class id changed, and so can be anything from a computer to a headset ;)

sad thing is, there is really only one company that do bluetooth the "right" way, and thats sonyericsson (see my SE phone earlier), as i have seen odd behavior out of the box from both nokia and samsung phones in the past (tho that do not really say anything about later phones). But then again, the ericsson part of SE is the company that created bluetooth in the first place. So maybe they have a vested interest in getting it right.

Btw, ignoring other phones could be apples way of trying to remove the thread of bluetooth shared viruses, something thats hit both symbian and windows mobile phones in the past.

also, bluetooth is why i never really understood this drive to put a mobile phone radio into everything that can compute. Heck, i didnt know the US Telcos had a special word for attaching a phone to a computer by way of usb or bluetooth until i heard about people paying for special tethering plans. Where i live, norway, data traffic by phone just shows up on the bill, right next to call and text.

and its stuff like it that gets me worried when the tech press continually looks to USA for the latest and greatest tech, when next to japan, USA have what could be considered the most wacky mobile phone network operators in the world.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

the iphone has a stripped bluetooth stack.

the only way thay can get a complete functionality is by jailbreak, and the install of a cydia app to replace the original stack while the app is running.

same happens for the usb connection. can be "pen drive" by the same way

but thats more for an iphone forum :)

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

So this all means that the Iphone is the reason for beeing unable to set up a bluetooth connection with the N900? And how is then that I cannot connect to Samsung devices either? Connecting to SonY Xperia phones does work by the way...

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

Make sure the Samung devices have the correct profiles for what your trying to do.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

another reason why iPhone should not be categorized as a "SmartPhone".

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

You ca say that again, I have one but it still can't beat the little phone I bought for $65TT lol ridiculous, I only use it for gaming at work, love my N900 for life

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

well,thats a really trange thing which apple is doing.
and the bluetooth and flash problems are the things why i never would buy an iphone

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

Actually, in USA it is more common then not. Iirc, Verizon have a history of disabling file transfer profiles (and making tethering profiles only available if the phone gets the ok from the network, related to selling the service as a business feature at a premium) via custom firmware on phones they allow onto their network.

I suspect it may be a holdover from the Ma Bell age, where the phone in a persons home was considered AT&T property. And any tampering with that phone would risk contract violation and disconnection. As such, US carriers may see the phones as extensions of their network rather then something the customer owns.

And this may partially be why Nokia is known in USA as a seller of dumbphones only. This because Nokia would not allow the carriers to tamper with the phones firmware and disable features.

Btw, i read a claim that Nokia operates with a different definition of "smartphone". To Nokia, a smartphone is one that integrate features that previously was found in separate devices. So to Nokia, even the "lowly" cameraphone is a smartphone. In contrast, HTC, Apple and others see a smartphone as something that do much the same online stuff as a desktop or laptop computer...

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

The iPhone is a smart phone because it doesn't try do to do a 1,000 functions the iPhone only has a few and the iPhone is near perfect at doing every single one of the functions it does, while a Nokia phone can do 1,000 but it is horrible a nearly every function. Get it.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

there used to be an app called ibluetooth on iphone (cydia) this lets you connect to another phone. and isim (copy contacts to sim) in cydia
only if the iphone is jailbroken

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

"A smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone."
taken from wikipedia. the source of all knowledge;)
having said that, I'd certainly draw your attention to the bit about connectivity...... and in the very first sentence too.

Suggesting that the iphone is smart phone because it does some things really well is a bit misguided don't you think?
The definition of "smart" is changing as improving technology allows us to do more and more. the smart phones of 2 years ago are seen as outdated and obsolete by todays standards, but compared to my old Motorola Teletac 200, are positively space age.
I could argue that the iphone is not a smart phone due to it's lack of true multitasking abilities and the very fact that it can't even use the most basic bluetooth protocols for file transfer without being hacked.......
If fashionable = smart then of course, that's a different matter. If having 150 different fart apps and 40% of your "apps" actually being nothing more than links to web pages or e-reader books, than the only smart bit about the device is the Apple marketing department's capacity to mislead the consumer.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

What the iPhone lacks in smartphone featues, it makes up for in hype and some really great exclusive apps. iOS users don't know what they're missing because they're too busy enjoying what they have.

Symbian is still the best Smartphone OS in my opinion. Maemo is of course better than any other mobile OS at computing tasks. One can only hope that MeeGo/Qt brings the two together into an awesome new OS.

Re: iPhone Bluetooth
 

I think the iPhone should be classified as a a advanced feature phone ;). Anyways I've never considered the idevices true mobile computer, yet everyone thinks there so amazingly advanced, but because of the fact that they are incredibly restrictive and don't allow open development, have a proprietary port, don't allow choice of carrier (at least in the United States), or memory and battery expandability, the iOs devices should be classified as appliances not mobile computers.