

Apple Uses Bluetooth LE To Enable Apple TV ‘Touch To Set Up’ Via iOS 7 Devices - swamp40
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/25/apple-turns-apple-tv-into-an-ibeacon-to-enable-touch-to-set-up-with-ios-7-devices/

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benologist
Direct link instead of AOL's rewriting of AOL's summary of it -

[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5900](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5900)

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swamp40
I've been wondering recently if iBeacon is the first showing of a 2 year long
plan to crush NFC and take over POS payments, or whether Apple released
iBeacon just for better Passbook functionality, and then the world anointed it
as the NFC killer and all-hail-the-new-king - and now Apple is scrambling to
come up with a comprehensive plan to do what people _think_ iBeacon was meant
to do.

(They've delayed any detailed specifications for weeks now.)

Doesn't matter to me. _Anything_ that finally gets Bluetooth LE on a roll is
fine with me. It has awesome potential.

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headShrinker
I think iBeacon is Apples response to NFC. NFC was poorly executed from the
beginning. Google didn't push it hard, and Samsung implemented it
wholeheartedly with gimmicky features like file transfer. No major retailer
was ever involved that I or anyone I know care about. The most I saw NFC being
used for was Samsung bus stop ads. What Apple has in it's hand and what Google
is trying so hard to get is 500 million user accounts with CC information
already entered via its app and music stores. The payment information is what
the companies have a hard time getting. Wallet and Checkout never blossomed
and all those reasons are why NFC is so anemic right now.

Also, NFC technology is a little clunky with 'turning on yet another protocol,
setting up incoming connections, "it didn't work try again.", etc, etc'. The
iPhone is the phone of the masses because they simplified or removed protocols
like removable Li-ion, SD, USB, and NFC. The only protocols that remain are
the most branded, and the most functional. (They are still working to perfect
Siri :)

Developing well established existing technologies that people and phones are
already used to (bluetooth) is key to Apple's strategy. NFC was DOA simply
because Samsung has a hard time with implementation [ie: eye tracking, tv
voice commands, and hand commands].

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jrockway
I don't know how Samsung's NFC implementation works, but the only correct way
to use NFC or Bluetooth Low Energy is to exchange a session key, and then use
WiFi for the actual data transfer. NFC and Bluetooth LE have way too low a
data rate to be useful for anything else. (Well, I guess it's OK for syncing
my step count from my FitBit.)

Actually, this makes me wonder why anyone bothered with NFC or Bluetooth LE
for file transfer, etc., when WiFi Direct is just as good.

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StavrosK
Can't Bluetooth LE "upgrade" the connection to full speed?

Also, since I'm asking: Does anyone know if my Bluetooth-LE-supporting HTC One
will consume very little battery if Bluetooth is turned on? I have an inkling
that it will need to keep advertising Bluetooth proper, so it will use as much
battery as Bluetooth always has.

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adestefan
No. Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE are distinct, incompatible protocols.

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baddox
Why would actually tapping your phone onto the Apple TV be required? I thought
iBeacons had a range of several meters.

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mmohsenazimi
In article it says you don't have to touch AppleTV. They were able to pair
from 8 inch distance.

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jimmcslim
From my perspective, this seems why perhaps iBeacon isn't an NFC killer? NFC
seems to have an advantage of requiring contact (baring a few millimetres gap
because of device/case) to trigger an action (better for actions that are more
'intentional'?) whereas with iBeacon distance is bit of a woolly concept.

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sjtgraham
I don't think this is "iBeacons". This sounds like the MultipeerConnectivity
framework, which uses both WiFi and Bluetooth and is agnostic as to which
interface is used.

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swamp40
Everything is iBeacons these days.

Doesn't matter that Bluetooth LE has been out since 2010, and was first
developed by Nokia in 2006.

I actually don't mind. I've been waiting for years for Bluetooth LE to take
off. If this is what it takes, that's fine with me.

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gms
Can't the same thing be done using regular Bluetooth?

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r00fus
The benefit of BT LE is that the pairing process is supposed to take at most
6ms. Thus the requirement for 4S or later iOS devices.

Pretty sweet. I wonder if this was supposed to be part of the new AppleTV
reveal in Oct?

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Timothee
_is supposed to take at most 6ms. Thus the requirement for 4S or later iOS
devices._

I don't follow the causation between the first and second sentences. Are
iPhone 4 not fast enough or do they lack the proper BlueTooth technology?

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randomdata
The latter. The iPhone 4S was the first model with BTLE hardware.

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robbiet480
Great, this sounds like Apple is going to compete with NFC.... you know, a
real standard. Like FaceTime, oh wait, like iMessage, oh wait, like AirDrop,
oh wait.

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eddieroger
Apple is making a bet on NFC like they did on Blu-Ray. Nothing has proven that
NFC is going to change the world one device at a time yet, just ike so many
computers still don't come with Blu-Ray drives. Besides, every iPhone and iPad
currently for sale support BTLE, whereas there are only a handful of devices
that come with an NFC chip. Why wouldn't Apple leverage a technology that all
of their current devices support?

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swamp40
I agree with most of your argument, but almost every Android phone for the
last 3 years has had NFC installed - so I'll bet the installed userbase is
actually _more_ than for Apple's Bluetooth LE.

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adestefan
And every Android phone has had BLE hardware, but no software because Google
dragged their feet until this summer. The install base of BLE is _far_ larger
than NFC.

