What is Apple thinking?

[MacDryCleaner]

I'm not being rhetorical here. I'm really curious about what the thought process might be behind Apple's decision to not allow bluetooth headphones to work for playing music wirelessly. I mean, so many phones now allow it. Is there something about playing music wirelessly via bluetooth that could cause a security problem or something?

I would appreciate any speculation. It just seems like this phone is such a no-brainer for such technology and yet it seems as though Apple has always had an aversion to bluetooth headphones with the iPods too.

So....what is Apple thinking?

Thanks

 

[iBlue]

They're really into those white wires!

 

[Sobe]

I'm not a mind reader, but my guess is that they had a core set of capabilities/features they wanted to get out by their target launch date and taking the time to add others would have delayed their launch.

There are a whole bunch of things that are in the "it would be nice if..." category that they simply didn't put into the iPhone and I would put music over bluetooth headphones in this category. Heck they didn't even have an apple bluetooth headphone ready for launch, so that gives you an idea of where their priorities were.

Ipod/phone/internet/email/SMS then bells and whistles like visual voicemail, etc.

Personally, I think it's a pretty smart business model. You get a core set of features and button those down pretty tightly. And I think the iPhone does its core capabilities amazingly well.

Over time you can add things in the "it would be nice" category.

 

[darngooddesign]

I have a hard time believing that supporting stereo bluetooth would be any harder than supporting bt headsets, but who knows maybe there was a particular hurdle they couldnt get past by the introduction date. A better question is whether this feature can be added in the future...you know, like when Apple has a set of BT headphones to sell you.

This may not be like wondering if they can add wifi.

 

[Sobe]

it's not about it being difficult really, other phones can do it right?

The point is you have limited time and resources.

 

[kdarling]

I'm not a mind reader, but my guess is that they had a core set of capabilities/features they wanted to get out by their target launch date and taking the time to add others would have delayed their launch.

Either that, or they plan a "deluxe" model with all the real bells and whistles. (just kidding)

Seriously, the big question is: why was it clearly launched before it was ready and well tested? * I would guess:

Partly because Jobs said June and got stuck with it. Partly because June is a month before all the new phones usually hit other carriers, and they felt they needed the head start. Partly because it's a warm month and there's no glove issue.

* (I'm sure heads rolled over no one testing enough brand new units to find out that a lot crashed back to the home page unless they had been fully reset. Or to notice the volume problem. No company wants mistakes like that. For every person we see post here with access to answers, there must be hundreds who can't figure out what's going on with their new phone.)

 

[Rodimus Prime]

if I had to take a stab at it my guess was it had something to do with a battery issue.

 

[macduke]

i agree, the battery is already being drained by the big screen and ipod playing music. add bluetooth streaming audio and the battery will really feel the crunch. they probably didn't want a bad consumer experience with headphones that run down their batteries before the day is over so they can't even make any calls in the evening without having to charge the batteries again. my old phone, the infamous rokr e1 with "itunes" would run down quickly just transferring files over bluetooth. i would put my money on this being the reason. first thing i did after buying my iphone is making sure the bluetooth was off.