

The amazing iOS 5 API and iPhone 4S hardware nobody talks about - robspychala
http://www.de-de.com/blog/14177518904-bluetooth
CoreBluetooth 4.0 LE
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pak
Is it just me, or did the 5 use cases proposed in the article immediately give
you the reaction "Yuck, I'm kind of glad that none of those things actually
broadcast that crap (yet)."

~~~
fennecfoxen
I'd go a step further and say that the 5 use cases proposed in the article
give me the reaction "good thing no one does that yet, because it would
probably kill the technology." These crazy would-be advertising innovations
that rely on people cooperating with advertisers to _look at more ads_... what
are they thinking??

(Wait. They're thinking "money money money", and apparently not much else.
Duh. There's the problem.)

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jws
Bluetooth 4.0 LE - Non-paired communication in the 10s of meters range. Very
low power. 250kbps or so max speed.

It could be useful for easily interacting with devices, e.g. thermostats,
exercise monitors, televisions, cars…

There don't appear to be (m)any devices using it now. But it is in the phone,
waiting.

~~~
sudont
Indeed. CSR has a nice-sounding SoC for this, but their dev program sucks for
hackers. $10k for a seat? Blegh.

TI is a bit more friendly in this regard, see video in below link.

I'm interested to see if anyone could potentially implement a lightweight data
format for send/receive to create an open system for communicating from app-
to-mote. Right now, any iPhone receiver app on the store wouldn't be allowed
to download any drivers, however a common application-layer protocol
transmitting JSON would probably work. After all, it wouldn't be code, just
rules on how to interpret it.

<http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2540dk-mini#Related%20Products>

~~~
jws
I've pondered a similar concept whenever I design an embedded system that
needs a user interface. Provide a common formatted set of data (JSON say), a
fallback interface (HTML,CSS,javascript), and an identifier for a better
interface if the user's device can get to a network and snag an app or updated
UI (URL).

Look at all the things around you in daily life with awful user interface
devices, and yet you almost certainly carry a really nice UI device in your
pocket and probably have a really great device in your bag.

~~~
jordanhackworth
UPnP already does this. It can even include a presentation URL.

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toyg
Talking about iPhone and Bluetooth: is there any app that would make it easier
to switch BT on and off? BT and WiFi are major power drains, so I always
switch them off as soon as I can, but it's a major pain.

By default you have to go to Settings -> General -> Bluetooth -> on/off -- 4
taps, which is ridiculous. It's slightly better for WiFi, "only" 3 taps.

Ideally I'd be able to get buttons on my home screen that will quickly switch
these on or off with 1 tap.

~~~
fishtopher
This guy made some shortcuts usingthe new urls to individual settings. It's
not 1 tap (it's 2!), but it's a bit better if you need to use any of the
settings a lot.

<http://brdrck.me/settings/>

~~~
toyg
That's sweet. Incredibly useful AND a nice showcase of what's possible with
special web clips on iOS.

Installed and donated $10, well worth it.

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frankus
I highly doubt that Bluetooth 4.0 is going to remove the biggest obstacle to
these sorts of applications on the iPhone, which is Apple's review process.

Right now if your Bluetooth device corresponds to one of the handful of
profiles with blanket approval from Apple (headsets, keyboards, certain
accessibility hardware) you're fine, but if you're trying to do anything as
exotic as serial communication with a third-party device you're shit out of
luck unless you join Apple's MFI program.

And the MFI program won't even talk to you until you've lawyered up, so it's
pretty alienating to anyone who wants to build something as a side project.

The same goes for serial communication. You can buy a nicely-built RedPark
cable and make a stunningly beautiful app to talk to whatever device is on the
other end, but your app won't make it into the store unless Apple has put the
MFI stamp of approval on your device.

Since Apple controls what goes into their App Store, it would require a major
shift in their approval policy before we see any significant expansion of apps
that talk to arbitrary Bluetooth-enabled widgets.

(If anyone has heard of examples of approved apps using serial or bluetooth
communication to talk to unapproved devices, I'd love to know!)

~~~
kainosnoema
I can't say much since I'm still under NDA, but I can tell you that my co-
founder and I got all the way through the MFI approval process, without any
kind of "lawyering up". Apple was great through the entire process—very eager
to help us get our small project started.

The MFI program isn't the easiest process in the world, but it isn't
impossible. Definitely doable as a side project if you're motivated.

~~~
frankus
That's good to hear. I remember starting to go through the signup process
about a year and a half ago and by the third screen they wanted to know the
contact information for my legal counsel.

I may have to revisit my project in light of your comment :)

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thurn
This stuff would probably be pretty useful for turning your iPhone into a
remote control if Apple makes a TV

~~~
masklinn
And for home automation in general.

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untog
_Some things that are not possible yet (though it would be super cool if they
were on Apple’s todo list):

\- iPhone to iPhone CoreBluetooth communication_

This is a killer. All of the ideas suggested in the article would require
custom built hardware- if we could do user-user connections then I think a lot
more would be possible.

~~~
ricardobeat
Apple has just revamped their hardware partner program, supposedly providing
easier access to BL4 chipsets. Other hardware makers will certainly follow. I
bet (and hope) this will be bigger than RFID.

~~~
gonzo
What are you attempting to say here?

While Apple has made recent changes to MFi (can't discuss, NDA), these are
expressly NOT about access to Bluetooth LE or 4.0 "chipsets".

What IS true is that you don't have to go through MFi to have a device that
talks LE to an iOS device.

Is this what you were trying to say?

~~~
ricardobeat
Yeah, I misused "chipsets". AFAIK you need an Apple-certified chip to
interface to an iOS device via BT/AirPlay, isn't that right?

I'm just relaying news I've hear somewhere else, feel free to correct me.

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robspychala
looks like GAE quota was reached. fixing now.

article is also mirrored on tumblr @

<http://dedegroup.tumblr.com/post/14177518904/bluetooth>

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bijanv
The only problem with all of these use cases is very few people walk around
with their bluetooth on all the time! Cool technology but I don't see this
getting picked up in the way you're imagining.

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MrMuslin
Ironically this article looks terrible on an iPhone 4S
<http://i.imgur.com/H4FXD.jpg>

~~~
robspychala
oh man. can you retry? i think it's cause not all the assets loaded (ran out
of free quota on GAE) fixing now.

~~~
MrMuslin
Ah! Much much better now.

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smackfu
Usually Apple would use this kind of API to actually power some cool feature.
Wonder why they didn't?

~~~
jeffclark
Yet.

Seems like a really good technology for, say, an Apple TV remote.

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ctz
Is the page layout broken for anyone else?

(Me: Chrome 17.0.963.2 dev-m on Windows).

~~~
robspychala
is it still broken? rand out of quota for a few minutes so maybe not all the
assets loaded.

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ctz
Looks good now!

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gcb
Anything wireless that doesn't require some sort of pairing is crap.

Maybe fine for tv remote if you still want to be vulnerable to tv-be-gone. But
since even tvs now have powerful cpus, not even it is worth

~~~
lukifer
What about audio? I'm incredibly frustrated that I have 4 different devices
capable of exporting Bluetooth audio, but I have to go through a bug-ridden
and annoying pairing process to hook one up to my car or home stereo, so I
don't even bother.

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trotsky
If you had non paired audio anyone walking by could hijack your audio stream

~~~
lukifer
First, as security breaches go, that's pretty minor. Someone could also shit
on my front doorstep too, but somehow it doesn't happen that often. Second,
there are better ways to link devices than pairing; for instance, hit a button
on the receiver to see the closest device by signal strength, while also
remembering all previous devices. Or, a UI for booting out the device ID of an
accidental linkage or ne'er-do-well.

Pairing makes sense for sensitive data usage, such as tethering. But it's a
broken pattern for consumer purposes like multimedia and gaming.

~~~
trotsky
It's not that big of a security breach but it'd absolutely be annoying is
anyone could do it on the train. People don't steal your mail but as soon a
firesheep came out a dozen jokers a block were logging in to people's
facebook.

Make it so it doesn't interrupt your headphones and then all of a sudden it's
trivial for anyone to listen to at least half of your telephone calls.

Most BT headsets already pose a serious everyday security risk to people who
might be targets of surveillance by as minor players as private detectives or
journalists due to both protocol and chipset weaknesses. BT security has been
improving since then, but the last thing it needs to do is go backwards
because you can't be bothered to pair a device with your car once(!)

