Will the iPhone SDK allow for Bluetooth access to peripherals?

On 8-Mar-2008, at 04:58, Chris Devers wrote:
> If the SDK can access Bluetooth, then in principle it ought to be
> possible to get the phone to work with existing BT keyboards, not to
> mention all the other BT hardware available (stereo headsets, for
> one).

Bluetooth has a variety of 'profiles' as I understand it, and I doubt
the BR in the iPhone can 'talk' BT keyboard profile.

I'd love to be wrong.

Does the iTouch also have BT?

On Mar 9, 2008, at 4:21 PM, LewisGmail wrote:

> On 8-Mar-2008, at 04:58, Chris Devers wrote:
>> If the SDK can access Bluetooth, then in principle it ought to be
>> possible to get the phone to work with existing BT keyboards, not to
>> mention all the other BT hardware available (stereo headsets, for
>> one).
>
> Bluetooth has a variety of 'profiles' as I understand it, and I doubt
> the BR in the iPhone can 'talk' BT keyboard profile.
>
> I'd love to be wrong.

Looking at it a it more, it's starting to seem unlikely to me.

The terms of the SDK appear to be steering developers towards writing
standard standalone apps.

Background daemon processes aren't allowed, nor are software plugin
architectures.

That to me implies in turn that custom Bluetooth (etc) drivers won't
be allowed, as they're kind of daemon-ey and kind of plugin-ey.

I suppose you might be able to write an app that connects to a
Bluetooth peripheral (keyboard, headphones, another computer [use the
iPhone as a modem], etc), then do the work of that peripheral in the
app itself (let you type, listen to music, go into "modem slave mode",
etc), but that takes much of the interest out of the idea, if the plan
had been to provide external keyboard services for Mail (etc),
headphones for iTunes, and so on.

Oh well. Who knows, maybe when the 2.0 software comes out, it'll Just
Have a proper suite of Bluetooth profiles...

> Does the iTouch also have BT?

Magic 8-Ball says "No":

   http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/specs.html

Which also takes some of the fun out of this whole line of thought (so
much for a Bluetooth microphone/headset for a hypothetical iPod Touch
VoIP app...). Oh well.


--
Chris Devers

On Mar 9, 2008, at 4:21 PM, LewisGmail wrote:
>
> Does the iTouch also have BT?

Not my 8gig/Jan.update model... pity.

Roger Henriques
listsrhen.com