Steve Jobs says no Bluetooth iPod…for now
posted Sep 20th 2005 9:07PM
We know we're not the only ones who have been quietly clamoring for a Bluetooth-enabled iPod, but it looks like we're going to have to keep dreaming — in yet another statement to the press at the big Apple Expo in Paris today, Steve Jobs trashed the idea of a Bluetooth iPod, saying that,
The problem with Bluetooth headphones is that it's not just recharging your iPod, you have to recharge your headphones too. People hate it. There are quality issues - the bandwidth isn't high enough, and even if it does get there some day, people don't want to recharge their headphones.
He's dead wrong about the bandwidth issues — Bluetooth 2.0 most definitely has the necessary bandwidth for crystal clear stereo audio, but we'll concede that having yet another gadget to charge can be annoying, even though hundreds of thousands of people who use Bluetooth wireless headsets with their cellphones every day have somehow managed to get over that issue. Anyway, you know how Steve is, once he's made up his mind about something that's it….until he announces at Macworld that he's changed his mind.
[Via Slashdot]
What's so bad about a headphone wire?
I don’t mind charging the headphones.. damn tangled up wires in my pocket that get tied in knots and take a few minutes to undo aggravates the hell out of me...
*This* is the vanguard of innovative PC design? I'm not laughing...
I HATE headphone wires. Ill take another thing to charge instead ANYDAY. Why not just give the bluetooth modal a try? Is he worried it will make him look like hes flogging the iPod a bit too hard? Cos.....
I understand his concern over having to recharge yet another piece of equipment, but there really isn't anything in the forseeable future that will change this reality. Apple will be waiting a very, very long time for a wireless "anything" that doesnt require recharging.
Bandwidth isn't even an issue as Peter pointed out, but even if it were, there are plenty of other short-range wireless technologies that could suited for the task. Wireless USB, for instance, starts at USB 2.0 speeds (=480mbps).
There's a big difference in the expected audio quality between a phone call and music.
Even if it had the option for bluetooth its not like everyone would be forced to use it.
"even though hundreds of thousands of people who use Bluetooth wireless headsets with their cellphones every day have somehow managed to get over that issue"
Yeah, but that's out of *hundreds of millions* of cell phone users. Except for a few hardcore gadget geeks, I really just don't think there's a huge demand for this product.
I love wireless in general (I'm typing this on a wireless net connection right now) but I don't personally have any great need for wireless headphones. I actually kind of like having a tether to my iPod. If I'm about to drop it, it's an extra split-second warning and I gotta say I've never dropped the thing yet. Plus, I don't think I'd trust bluetooth headphones. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but even if there technically is enough bandwidth, I'd probably never be convinced I was getting the best quality possible. I mean it's like wi-fi - sure, I've got 54mbps of bandwidth right now, but what's my max throughput in the real world? More like 20. And that's not a constant - it can go lower if someone in the next apartment so much as uses a microwave. Walking around a big city, I can't imagine you'd always have a clean signal.
And I do agree with Jobs that the last thing the world needs is one more thing to charge. Honestly, this is seriously a reason I haven't bought either a PSP or a DS yet. I'm about at my limit for rechargeable devices, and that limit appears to be three - my laptop, my cell phone, and my iPod. Any more than that and I just can't remember to do it. I'm gonna wake up every day and one of my devices is gonna be dead. I just can't be bothered to come home every night and plug a whole bunch of stuff in as soon as I sit down.
So I don't think Jobs is being dumb about this. I think he knows what he's talking about.
But the people wearing bluetooth headphones look like first class dorks.
Simply apple is not worried about it because headphone company can provide bluetooth enabled headphone and USB.
a good opportunity for 3rd party vendors.
Unrelated to this, can anyone confirm if this new Apple subscription service is for real?
http://www.xxeo.com/archives/2005/09/19/new-apple-subscription-program.html
People seem to be getting confused between Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth earphones.
The earphone is the mono spike that you stick in one ear and has a microphone. It uses BT 1.x and has 'cellphone' audio quality. The headphones are stereo and use a different profile to get better sound.
One obvious advantage to a well designed BT iPod - you could link your phone to your iPod so it can interrupt you when someone calls - and even switch the earphone to the phone.
Heck if you really want luxury - forget the BT headset - make a wired headset for the iPod that includes a mike so you can use the iPod as a BT earphone for your BT phone when it rings.
Now THAT would be useful...
Think Different, guy.
Just because Papa Jobs said it doesn't make it right.
STEVE JOBS is absolutely ridiculous. Allow me to design a bluetooth IPOD and I'd give you Bluetooth 2.0 with headphones that CONNECT to the top of the ipod while it sits on the dock and it would feature PASS THROUGH CHARGING. This way both devices would charge simultaneously.
Does anybody make a BT 2.0 pair of headphones today? In context SJ is right about the bandwidth of what's available today, but anyway, all the headphones available today are massive. If you want to walk around looking like an even bigger dork than the dorks that wear their phone headsets all day then there's already BT headphones available.
SJ is right about BT headphones.
He's wrong about including bluetooth though. Just being able to interrupt play when your phone rings is enough of a reason to include it.
I'll be there. Can't wait.
By putting 2.0 bt in there, you could also sync without a cable, very handy at times. I don't buy the recharging argument, you have to charge the pod already, just plug those in next to it... or perhaps in it...
This is a perfect place for Creative or another manufacturer to jump in and add bluetooth to their hardware. Creative doesn't even have to be creative, they just need to follow the news...
I just don't understand why they don't realize this.
You know, what if Apple's competitors actually did what Apple won't? Like everytime Apple shoots down a feature, they try to make a product to accomodate that audience.
No Bluetooth... End of story!
Don't want to pay for needless and frivolous thing.
Let see million iPod users and few hundred wants to use Bluetooth? Hmmm... I don't think so. This is a third party device solution not Apples.
Plus, I would rather put iPod on pause myself rather than let Bluetooth interrupt me when I get a call on my phone.
12#
So do it already.
Steve Jobs is absolutley more significant than this thread.
Okay what about a bluetooth enabled car? stereo? I dont care about headphones, I want it in my car that I buy in 5 years!!!!
Its not happening, anytime soon anyway, and im fine with that. Can you imagine forgetting to charge your BT Headphones, and having it die in the middle of the day? It would KILL me. im fine having my earbuds wired. It hasnt bothered me for the past 17 years.
Wil iTunes ever offer a subscription-based service?
I use the new logitech bluetooth wireless headphones with my PSP and iPod nano. They work amazingly well and I don't mind recharging them. Worth checking out, I'm so happy they finally made these, I am like the only person I've seen out in NYC with them.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2439,CONTENTID=10679
I use the new logitech bluetooth wireless headphones with my PSP and iPod nano. They work amazingly well and I don't mind recharging them. Worth checking out, I'm so happy they finally made these, I am like the only person I've seen out in NYC with them.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2439,CONTENTID=10679
He's just worried that BT headphones will ruin the silhouette commercials.
Steve Jobs is a pompous, fatuous ass.
He was an ass when he started his first business stealing long distance service with blue boxes.
He was an ass when he failed to open the Apple platform and lost the battle for the desktop to Microsoft / IBM / Intel.
He was an ass when he was fired from Apple in 1985 for, well, being an ass. (He should have stayed fired.)
He was an ass when he drove NeXT Computer into the ground.
He was an ass when he banned all books by Wiley at Apple Stores because they published an unauthorized biography about him.
He was an ass when he refused to open the iTunes DRM platform to Real Networks or any other competitors, even if it would mean more revenue through increased iPod sales.
He was an ass when he sued his biggest fans and supporters for sharing Apple rumors (a PR guy's dream). (I'll probably get sued for this post.)
He was an ass when he partnered with Motorola to develop a phone that can hold only 100 songs.
And he was an ass when he claimed Bluetooth headphones can't be done, and that consumers don't want them.
This is a man who is living in a fantasy world, and whose brief flashes of brilliance (e.g., the original iPod) will, in retrospect, always be overshadowed by pigheaded and asinine business decisions that will forever condemn Apple's flagship computing products to less than 5% market share.
And we worship this man as a hi-tech visionary?
folks, look three or four steps ahead.
1. BT Ipod.
2. someone writes bt file transfer or even better, P2Pod software.
3. apple legal fees eat into profit.
4. Jobs for president campaign money less than Oprah's.
5. Oprah wins.
6. Oprah outlaws mininanos because fat people tend to break them in their pockets.
why u gotta get on Oprah .. huh??
*Oprah Supporter*
I can understand not having stereo Bluetooth in a dedicated DAP (though personally, I'd prefer it) - but I hope they'd at least consider adding it to whatever iPod phone / ROKR-successor they're planning. Other manufacturers are already implementing the A2DP stereo Bluetooth profile into their MP3/AAC musicphones.
I agree with KianTech - this would be a really convenient way to playback music from a device into a Bluetooth-enabled home/car stereo system (which obviously wouldn't need recharging).
The one thing Jobs doesn't mention is the dear price he would pay in iPod battery life. As things are right now, Apple is doing everything they can to have a long battery life for the iPod, while keeping it as small as possible. I don't know offhand how many milliamps an active Bluetooth radio draws, but I know it is significant.
Bluetooth enabled iPod = more power = bigger battery = bigger form factor. Steve Jobs wants smaller, not bigger iPods. No Bluetooth for you!
I think this is a good idea. Not having Bluetooth that is.
Powering the radio would further eat into battery life on the iPod.
The bandwidth is too low for syncing.
The same bandwidth issue would result in a need to send a compressed audio stream to listening devices, which would probably sound bad.
I'm running out of outlets at work to charge portable stuff so any chargeable headphone deals would probably go un-charged anyways.
Wires are the new vacuum tubes!
The iPod is successful because it is simple. Morons like to claim this success it due entirely to marketing, but there are plenty of products marketed with larger bugets that fail completely. Because they suck.
The iPod is currently humanity's most perfectly realized music player, due entirely to simplcity and elegance coating a very complex core. Don't for a minute think Apple (there are more smart people at Apple than just Steve Jobs) is going to fuck up the iPod's perfection by adding unnecessary crap.
Just ask Rio about their success in the crap-adding area. Or any other music player maker.
Bluetooth headphones are crap *today* not because of having to charge them, but due to the consequences of forgetting to charge them. Uncharged bluetooth headphones are a larger problem than the tangled cable problem.
Eventually this problem will fade, as everything computer-based continues to improve at an increasingly rapid pace. But today there is simply no way bluetooth headphones make sense from Apple's, or any sane player maker's, perspective.
I agree that Steve Jobs is an ass...my father tells stories of his assholiness when my dad used to work at ATAC and later DEC and would go to Cupertino functions for computer engineers. heh
BUT
I'm on the fence about the inclusion of bluetooth in an ipod.
Battery concerns raised by Steevo (29) are actually on the spot. Its in fact a bigger reason why not to include it over any of the ridiculous reasons Mr. Jobs gave.
IN fact the pass through idea raised by sniper4hire is a good one...in response to Jobs' issues
also
I don't think bandwidth is an issue however inevitable distortion in sound quality is. Despite the introduction of wifi/wireless enabled speaker sets most audiophiles stick with wired (or Pioneer and Sony's one unit many speaker setup) not because they are luddites but because there is occasional distortion and loss of highs with them. or other sound quality related issues like loss of soundstage and depth.
Then again the earbuds that come with the Ipod are complete trash soooo maybe heh that kind of sound fidelity isn't THAT high on their list of priorities ( in fact depite its many problems the RIo Karma had much better sound quality)
regardless I am tempted to try the third party option BT headphones made by Logitech out but I love my Westone UM-2's too much (best non custom earcanal phones on the market).
"Just ask Rio about their success in the crap-adding area. Or any other music player maker."
Halarity ensued. Good point. Steve has a great mentality in that "once a feature is there, it wont be removed." I think that philosophy is what makes it sweet, simple, and successful.
The people that want bluetooth are generally among the people that complain about battery life as well. I havent seen the promised 72 hour iPod battery, and with the battery now, you would be losing a lot more battery life with BT.
lol @ the apple fanboys.
right now they are like bluetooth sucks, who needs its, dont wanna recharge, etc,etc,etc.
once apple comes out with bluetooth headsets they will be like its the most innovative thing ever.
What about blue tooth car radios? Blue tooth ipod + blue tooth car radio = no itrip, no static!!!
Does anyone (*anyone*) make a Bluetooth stereo headset with Mic that doesn't suck or simply not work. With Skype on our PCs and music in our phones and all the other convergence, I would dearly love to be able to get rid of the tether. And it should be tranparent so that when the phone rings, the music is paused and when the call ends, the music picks up again. And absolutely without having to change profiles.
Now what about when I have an iPod in one pocket and a phone in the other. Is it feasible to have these two devies talk to a bluetooth headset simultaneously and negotiate access? I guess not, but why not? And when?
And for those of you pouring scorn on bluetooth headsets for mobiles, they're selling gangbusters in the UK due to the laws on driving and using a cellphone.
Couldn't a headset be created in such a way that.. it could double in functionality as a wired headset without needing a charge? Meaning, couldnt they make it to where if you plug a wire into it, it turns off the bluetooth radio and works like any other headset? Such a headset would make the argument for forgetting to charge yet another device moot.
If the ipod's battery life is a concern against using the bluetooth, dont use it! You can turn the bluetooth radio off... Why does that have to preclude others who prefer it? To claim battery life as an argument against this is absurd. Those who use bluetooth know the implication it has on their battery life. For the ones who dont know, thats what marketing is for.
Those of you trying to make Apple look like some kind of super-genius because of this decision (*cough* #30) are missing something here... If Steve Jobs is claiming that bluetooth does not have the necessary bandwidth, clearly Apple has not been doing its job with market research! What kind of genius is that??
If bluetooth devices to support this arent there now, so what? The technology is. If apple released a bluetooth ipod, EVERYBODY would be jumping on board to make newer, better bluetooth headsets for it. "If you build it, they will come."
The potential benefits of having bluetooth as an available option far far outweigh the arguments I've seen so far against it. IMHO, this is an extremely closed-minded decision on Apple's part, and a HUGE opportunity for other DAP makers...
"The iPod is successful because it is simple. "
No the iPod is successful because of iTunes + iTMS + wheel + (Marketing +trendy). This whole idea that the iPod is successful because of the unit interface is horsecrap. I've got a 60GB iPod. I've used other MP3 players. The interfaces aren't that different to cause some massive migration over to the iPod. It’s the combined total package. Apple could easily do BT 2.0 in their iPod. They aren't for a couple reasons the biggest being they are sitting on top of the dog pile.
There is no reason to change the status quo. Bring the competition and watch Apple start adding features to the iPod left and right. As it stands I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years we still have the same warmed over crap we have today. When MS does it its called stagnation. When Apple does it its called innovation. Go figure.
And if you think the Nano is anything other then the same crap we've had the last three years you are delusional. Its the same interface. Same design. Same crap just no HD. Woo hoo. Lets here it for innovation.
As for the stupid notion that BT is going to seriously eat into battery life. My iPod gets 10-15 hours of playback time. Even if you drop that to 8 it still would last me a couple days and even then I drop my iPod into the dock once every other day to sync up the changes so it gets charged anyways. So who gives a crap. And the charging of the headset doesn't fly either. Worse case the battery on the headset dies and you switch to earbuds. (I’ve got a spare Sony set sitting in my car.) Oh boo hoo. You poor baby.
I want Bluetooth for my iPod... Oh, I already have it with my Bluetooth Naviplay. The wireless element, I could live without. The ability to take a phone call and not miss it while listening to my iPod, priceless.
Folks, you need Shure e4c or Etymotic 4p or 6i to fully appreciate your iPod (or any other portable player for that matter). Guess what? Those headphones sit in your ear canal, so bluetooth is out of question.
But most of you suckers use crappy headphones, can't tell the difference and wouldn't mind even crappier headphones that you also need to recharge. And that's sad.
SJ is right. If you don't know what's better for yourself, SJ will show you the way.
Why not recharge the headphones by docking them with the iPod?
It provides somewhere to stash your headphones when not in use, though obviously the runtime of the headphones must exceed that of the iPod whilst at least matching the iPod's charge-time. Can't be that hard, can it?
Damn you Sniper4hire - I was going to say that! I think it's a perfect idea - little earbuds whose stalk click-locks into the top of the iPod like little ears. Just make sure they last longer than the iPod's charge ;)
bluetooth, 2.5ghz radio wave for 2 hours at day on my head.
I can't wait to have a brain tumor.
Please please steveeeeeee.
hey "urban strata" poster #26:
so much anger in your post, you'd think you were unhappily married to steve jobs. but since you (presumably) don't have to bend over for Mr. Jobs on a nightly basis, you might want to increase your xanax dosage a little and chill out.
if what steve jobs has accomplished in his life means being an ass, I wish there were more asses in this world. judgemental complainers like you -- people who keep long lists of grudges against people they've never met or known -- will likely accomplish very little with their lives. you can belittle a man who has vastly enriched MY life with the byproducts of his existance -- just keep yelling at him, but I doubt he'll hear you as he rushes past you in his G7 jet.
I call for spam deletion for #40 (archna). Nice copy and paste job from somewhere making it look like you were actually contributing something meaningful to the discussion.
Bluetooth in the iPod would be great. All I want to be able to do is use my iPod as the remote at home without having to add a bluetooth adaptor from a third party. 8 hours max battery life with Bluetooth turned on would be fine with me if I could have this.
"You know, what if Apple's competitors actually did what Apple won't?"
You mean like FM radio, video, or on-device recording?
Apple's competitors have added all these things. And guess what? They don't sell.
People just don't want these features. I don't know why some of you just can't grasp that some people are just happy with the way things are. Apple is the only real successful DAP seller because they understand what the customers want - they want a fully integrated and seamless experience (including iTunes), they want a clean and simple interface, they want high style and they want small size. That's it. No other company has gotten this stuff right.
Instead, they've added all these extra features that you're talking about in the hopes of competing on functionality. It hasn't worked at all, because very few people are really unhappy with the features they already have. They're not running out buying iPod nanos because it has all these great features; they're buying it because it's *small*. I mean, the priorities of DAP buyers are just totally different than what some people here seem to think they are, and that's been proven now so many times over that I personally don't really understand why some people persist in thinking otherwise.
"if what steve jobs has accomplished in his life means being an ass, I wish there were more asses in this world."
Steve Jobs *is* an ass, but that's what you have to be in business in this country. The fact of the matter is he took Apple from several years of declining sales and unprofitability and turned things around. I don't think there's even a question that he's responsible for that.
If some people here don't think Creative or iRiver or even Microsoft wouldn't kill to have Steve Jobs on the payroll, then you're just as clueless about business as you are about mp3 players.
Bluetooth can be made to work for stereo in a fairly clean environment. Put it in with a few other competing BT devices (particularly other audio devices) and all bets are off. Try it with three devices in range (I've done this with BT 2.0) and let me know how well you do:-)
As many others have mentioned batteries are also a real issue.