Apple quietly put in BlueTooth 4.0 into it’s last few iPhone and iPads and most of it’s recent laptops and has barely said a word about it. What makes BT 4.0 so different? Part of it is Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), it uses much less energy than the previous BlueTooth options (and can go farther).
So it’s been almost a year since Apple put BT 4.0 in the iPhone 4s and they haven’t really done anything with it. I don’t think they’ve even done new versions of the Wireless Keyboard or the Magic Trackpad. Apple, when you do update these place make it easier to keep them turned off, I hate when my keyboard in the trunk of my car gets bumped and turned on and then I can’t type on my iPhone or iPad since they’re connected!
Rumors have been crazy for the last few years that Apple is going to do some kind of “use your iPhone to pay for things” option. But the rumors keep inferring that they’ll add something to the iPhone for this (NFC – Near Field Communication). My opinion is that this is incorrect, they’ve already got a wireless option in the iPhone, Bluetooth 4.0 (or they’ll use one of the wireless chips already in the phone).
Why do I think this? Because if they want people to adopt a system in stores and businesses to use the iPhone, they need many many users out there using this. Well, this fall they’ll have the iPhone 4s and the iPhone 6 will all have this feature (and nothing to stop them from adding this to the iPhone 4). It’s also likely that these three phones will be the all that will still be sold by Apple and it’s carriers (just like now at $0, $99 and $199). How’s that for an established user base?!?
The biggest concern is that Bluetooth data travels much much farther than NFC (many feet compared to several inches), but Apple may have a way around that (I’m not sure if they. I’m not even really sure why they want/need a wireless technology for this. My Mobile SpeedPass and my tap option on my credit card does almost the same thing, it just needs to be a little closer to work (yes, those are older technologies and probably need to be updated and more secure).
PS – I don’t think I’m supposed to capitalize the T in Bluetooth
