Bluetooth Headsets
Our readers know of Livio Radio (see my review here) for their Bluetooth in car radio hardware kit, available at your local Radio Shack, but you may not know that they have created Livio Connect, an API targeted at hardware makers and app developers. I had the opportunity to speak with Jake Sigal, CEO of Radio.
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(Note: in the meantime, the app received full iPad / iOS 5 support - see the latest update!) If you've been reading my articles since the Windows Mobile days, you may remember my thorough elaboration of the then-current file transfer methods over Bluetooth. (See e.g.
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Unfortunately, Apple's official support for Bluetooth devices is pretty weak. Keyboard support is limited (not all otherwise, with third-party "hacks", usable models are supported) and there's no true game controller / mouse / external GPS support at all.
Fortunately, there are a lot of utilities in Cydia (accessible from any jailbroken iDevice) that provide help in using these devices.
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UPDATE (20:15 CET, the same day): a reader at MacRumors, Night Spring, has mentioned I've forgotten to point out the other and, in this case, Phone Disk-less and even Windows-friendly way of quickly transferring a complete directory structure to GoodReader running on the iDevice: zip all the files up into one big ZIP file and drop it into the File Sharing frame of GoodReader in iTunes. I've even prepared a video showing this:
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As you may well know, in the past, I've published several articles (last one, testing 3.1.2 on the 3G and 3G S, HERE; one of pre-4.1 full AVRCP emulation HERE) on Bluetooth headphones and A2DP, the standard for music transfer between a mobile device and a pair of stereo headphones.
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I made a visit to my local Apple Store today and purchased both the Plantronics Discovery 975 and the Jawbone Icon (The Thinker). My goal was to find an earpiece that would help me not only take phone calls while I work and listen to my music, but also increase the sound volume for me. (I have some hearing loss.)
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Of all the gadgets I get to test, I was anticipating the ZOMM (http://www.ZOMM.com) more than any other. I have attended press briefings at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for a couple of decades, and the past two years, ZOMM was demonstrating their prototype but now it is finally shipping!
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As many of you A2DP (high-quality audio) freaks know and also been pointed out in my dedicated articles (last, iPhoneMVP-frontpaged one HERE), full AVRCP hasn’t been supported on the (otherwise, A2DP-capable) iPod touches and iPod’s, not even as of the latest, just-released 3.1.3 firmware.
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LG makes a phone called the Envy, but the LG phone that I've always envied is the Decoy. The LG Decoy has a snap-on Bluetooth earpiece that always goes with the phone. It's a novel concept that we iPhone users couldn't take advantage of. Now, there's a headset for that!
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