Apple Adopts Bluetooth 4.0. Could It Reject NFC?

siliconbits writes "Two months after Apple joined the Bluetooth special interest group board, the company launched the world's first truly mainstream Bluetooth 4.0 devices, namely the new Macbook Air & Mac Mini 2011 editions. The products came only one year after the official core specifications of Bluetooth 4.0 were adopted and it looks likely that Apple fast-tracked Bluetooth 4.0's adoption so that the forthcoming iPhone 5 can use this technology with at least one Apple product. This could mean that the manufacturer is considering giving up on NFC altogether, a technology embraced by all of its rivals."

Comments

False logic

[Opportunist]

It's the first device that supports BT4. That does by no means mean that it will be a success, neither does it mean that manufacturers will instantly jump the bandwagon.

Despite all Apple success and the increase in market share, they're still a far cry from the "other" desktop computers. We should probably start talking when the iPhone supports it.

Re:False logic

[girlintraining]

Despite all Apple success...

Haters gonna hate. :\ The only false logic I see here is saying "they've been successful in the past. It doesn't mean they'll be successful this time." While that's true, the fact is that Apple has a track record of strong consumer support. The standards their devices use have a strong bearing on what other manufacturers integrate into their own devices. No, I think talking now is exactly what's needed; NFC has yet to see a deployment by any major consumer hardware manufacturer. BT4 just signed its first contract, as it were. In IT especially, first to market usually wins.

Re:False logic

[beelsebob]

Actually, they're the third biggest computer manufacturer in terms of shipments (behind Dell and HP) and the biggest in terms of revenue and profits.

Re:False logic

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood why Apple fans brag that "their" company makes the highest profit off of them.

Re:False logic

[repapetilto]

Thats a strange way of looking at things.

What if there's 5 companies. Company A sells 100 computers a year, Company B sells 70. Company C sells 2. Companies D and E both sell 1.

Would you say Company C is a "far cry" from A and B?

Re:False logic

[Old97]

Quantity is more important? How? To whom? Investors care about profitability. GM used to have the largest market share. Toyota broke their own rules in order to surpass GM in quantity and it's severely damaged their reputation for quality as well as resulted in huge losses for the company. Smaller, more focused auto companies in the meantime were making money while maintaining or improving quality.

Apple's influence is huge across IT and the industry. It's market share is now just under 11% of PCs in the US, but if you subtract out the no-margin corporate market, Apple has a much larger share of the individual and education markets. Also, it's individual consumers have more disposable income and better education then those of their rivals. Apple has dramatically changed the industry first with the iPhone and then the iPad. Their influence on Microsoft has is huge as well. Where did Windows come from? (Apple code licensed by Microsoft.) The point is that Apple's reputation for correctly predicting consumer demand and being the first to ship hugely successful products has been noticed by all of its competitors as well as consumers. Smartphones took off after the iPhone, not before. Their rivals are all investing heavily in trying to compete with the iPad.

Quantity is not the size that matters here.,

Re:False logic

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

I don't have any opinion about Apple either way, I just say that we should maybe not take the "Apple does it, it's gotta be successful!" too literal.

Exactly. Why should we take something too literal that you imagine was said or written somewhere.

Re:False logic

[jo_ham]

iPads are not included in those figures. Macs (as in, specifically *not* iOS devices) make up 10% of new PC sales in the US, and Apple is one of the few individual vendors who are actually growing their business (in an overall decline in market growth compared to previous years).

Re:False logic

[Old97]

RIM's Blackberry and Nokia's internet phones had their fans, but neither took off with the general population. These were devices with some computer like capabilities. The iPhone along with the Palm and Android phones are computers with phone capabilities. Very few Blackberry users accessed the internet and they bought few apps if any. Most weren't even aware that they could. The users of Nokia's internet phones didn't buy a lot of apps or have any major impact on the industry as a whole. They were (are) good devices according to what their users say about them. Microsoft's efforts were not inspiring. What Apple did however changed everything around the world. Now RIM is trying to copy Apple and they aren't very good at it so they are withering away. The better Android manufacturers are doing very well and there is hope for Palm now it has access to HP's credit cards. Even Microsoft is tagging along hoping for some success. (I've seen Win 7 for Phones and it's pretty nice.)

RIM's value proposition was always their secure messaging. A secondary proposition was their enterprise management. There weren't good alternatives for a long time. What changed was the wider availability of 2 and 3G internet access and the availability of internet technologies that could duplicate RIM's secure messaging functionality without proprietary infrastructure. Apple capitalized on that. It was there and it was coming, but Apple was the first to recognize its potential and deliver something that would use it and excite a lot of consumers by providing a strong supporting ecosystem and the best in class marketing. So, my point is that investors and corporations around the world play very close attention to what Apple does. Their track record is too strong to ignore. Quantity doesn't matter in this case.

This is a bad thing?

[girlintraining]

When the Jobs Reality Distortion Field is turned off, usually Apple is found to be selling overpriced, underspec'd hardware. But the one time they get it right, we jump on them?

Bluetooth supports cryptography. NFC does not.
Bluetooth has a higher bitrate.
Bluetooth has longer range.
The power consumption is similar ... in fact, the only thing NFC seems to do better is that it takes less time to setup because (ta-da!) it has no security built into it.

So tell me guys, given how much data is sitting on your iphone, android, blackberry, blueberry, and walla-walla-ding-dong phones, do you really want a transciever built into it that has no security capability at all... and one of its main functions is point-of-sale integration?

Sorry guys, but this time at least, Apple did good.

Re:This is a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

When the Jobs Reality Distortion Field is turned off, usually Apple is found to be selling overpriced, underspec'd hardware.

Not really. In the computer market Apple mostly sells a slick proprietary Unix operating system, bundled with large, computer-shaped anti-copying dongles.

Re:This is a bad thing?

[profplump]

First, BlueTooth 2.1 and up supports Secure Simple Pairing, which has several security modes from "no-config encryption only" to "hardware authentication dongles":
1. Just works. A fully automatic encryption-only system that sacrifices protection against MitM attacks for the convenience of not requiring any user input. Think self-signed SSL certificates -- it's easy to use and secure against eavesdropping but vulnerable to active attacks.
2. Numeric comparison. Adds authentication to the "Just Works" method by displaying a passkey on both devices and asking the user to ensure they match. The only input required from the user is their acknowledgement that the displayed codes match.
3. Passkey entry. Like legacy pairing, but the passkey is 6 digits and is generated by one of the hosts and typed into the other (as opposed to the old 4-digit passkeys that may be user-selected and entered on both hosts).
4. Out-of-band. Bluetooth allows the exchange of authentication data entirely outside the BT data stream, allowing integration with other authentication and communications mechanisms. This allows for integration with hardware dongles or SSL certificates or whatever other sort trust system you'd like to establish for authentication.

Second, even for legacy pairing, isn't it easy enough to just try "0000" and "1234" when attempting to connect to a new device, and only prompt for user input of neither of those codes work?

Re:This is a bad thing?

[cp.tar]

This holds true while you only consider the internals: the CPU, graphics chipset, RAM, etc.

As soon as you consider other factors, Apple turns out to be fairly priced.
For instance, four years ago, when I suddenly got enough money to buy a good laptop, I was considering a ThinkPad. T40p, if my memory serves me right. An excellent laptop at the time, with an excellent screen, a ThinkPad keyboard and all the other nifty details that made it worth the price difference over similarly specced, yet cheaper laptops. It turned out it was sold out, and I could only get a significantly more expensive Windows version of the machine, which I was not ready to pay for; I’d intended to make it a Linux machine.
When I asked around for a good laptop in the same price range, the very first suggestion was a MacBook Pro. Roughly the same price, roughly the same specs, and I haven’t regretted it. Actually, I’m typing this on the very same laptop. I plan to replace it sometime next year, and I’ll buy an Apple machine again. You really do get what you pay for, though I admit not everyone is willing to pay extra for good design, a superb keyboard, quiet cooling system, and other things not shown in the specs list.

Apple does not do low-end devices. Thus it is wrong to compare their devices with their low-end competitors.
Compare them like for like, and Apple won’t seem so expensive. (Note, I’m talking about computers. I have no clue about mobile phones.)

Re:This is a bad thing?

[Americano]

And the extra you're paying is exactly for the shiny:
-- Generally better battery life than its contemporaries - sometimes significantly longer;
-- Generally lighter/thinner than its contemporaries - sometimes significantly smaller/lighter;
-- A whole bunch of fairly good consumer software to power your shiny new toy;

None of this comes without additional cost. Apple offers less choice in terms of customizability & models - but if you limit your search to similar sizes, weights, battery life, screen quality, and software (not just X Ram, X CPU, X HD capacity), the prices are fairly competitive.

Yes, you can get a laptop that will do "everything a Macbook does" for less money. But it will, almost invariably, be a heavier, bulkier model with lower battery life, and a shitload of preloaded crapware (including, for some people, Windows itself) that you'll want to delete almost immediately.

Re:This is a bad thing?

[m.ducharme]

You sure? I see the $599 iPhone selling for $50. I guess it depends on how long you hold onto your gear.

That's a first generation iPhone you've linked to. I'd bet money that other hardware companies can't even give away, brand new, the phones they made that were contemporaneous with the iPhone 1st Gen.

The surprise with Apple gear isn't that it has a higher resale value than the competition; it's that unlike the competition, Apple products have a resale value at all.

Re:This is a bad thing?

[thetoadwarrior]

Sorry but even Dell hardware when you compare something that is actually the same isn't that far off. I want to see how you found a 'similar' laptop that was £1,000 cheaper than the Apple equivalent.

Bluetooth sucks

[spire3661]

There is no other way to describe it. I prefer buying devices with proprietary radios (mouse/keybaords etc) rather then HOPE BT will work. Does anyone know why Bluetooth sucks so bad and is so hard for it to be consistent? My PS3 handles its controllers over bluetooth like a dream, why cant all bluetooth work that smoothly?

Re:Bluetooth sucks

[beelsebob]

Luckily, apple's bluetooth stack is one of the absolute best out there – I've never actually had a device fail to work with my macs.

Re:Bluetooth sucks

[Andy Dodd]

Because Sony performs some not-quite-standard tricks with the Bluetooth implementation of its controllers/the PS3. They also do extensive testing to make absolutely sure those two units interop.

Which is why things work. Have you noticed that there are NO other Bluetooth wireless controllers for the PS3? All other wireless controllers plug into a USB port because there's some Sony "special sauce". Also, to my knowledge, few if any people have ever gotten a PS3 controller to pair with a non-PS3 host. (USB is a whole other story for PS3 controllers.)

Re:Bluetooth sucks

[spire3661]

Non-Sony, dongle-less PS3 controller
http://www.gamestop.com/ps3/accessories/gioteck-ps3-hf-2-bluetooth-wireless-controller/90929?affid=9797&cid=ppc_60000001

PS3 controler on PC via bluetooth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJnuekAp7Fk

PS keypad on PC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQoqreZ8cw

Just sayin...

What, no more iDweeb wires-into-ears look?

[Animats]

This from a company that's been pushing wired headphones for years? Maybe Apple will finally get stereo Bluetooth support to work right.

NFC is unrelated

[Kagetsuki]

NFC is an almost entirely unrelated technology. Granted BlueTooth and NFC share some common features, but NFC is for other things. We use it for digital payment here in Japan for example - that's something you don't want going over BlueTooth. NFC is also good for various physical hot-spot applications. NFC also allows for physical queuing - something some fast food restaurants use for example. BlueTooth on the other-hand handles headsets and other peripherals, as well as a variety of inter-device communications. My phone has both BlueTooth and NFC, as do most phones here in Japan. To have both makes perfect sense.

Re:NFC is unrelated

[smelch]

Unencrypted no matter what? That's garbage. An omission of cryptography standards just means its cryptographically agnostic. Do you consider TCP/IP to be 100% unencrypted no matter what? Do you consider ethernet to be 100% unencrypted no matter what? Even written English can be encrypted in any of it's transport protocols (writing, speaking). What about just RAM storage? Can nothing be encrypted in RAM? Bits are bits, you can transform them any way you want, and send them over a dumb wire or dumb air where 1s are defined and 0s are defined, to be translated in any fashion you want.

they do this all the time, and it works for them

[v1]

[Apple] is considering giving up on NFC altogether, a technology embraced by all of its rivals

Apple isn't known for giving a crap what their competition is embracing. (that's MS's gig) I think the basic ideas is "why have a feature that everyone else has, giving the consumer a choice between our product and a dozen competitors, when we can offer an appealing feature that we have a large portion of the market on"?

Makes perfect sense really. Hype something that you, and everyone else, is offering, or hype something that they can only buy from you? That's just smart business.

Now of course this relies on the market adopting it if it's a compatibility thing, but then if you've already established yourself as the representative for the feature, you've accomplished your goal and it's ok for the competition to run up into the back of the pack with support too and their support for "your feature" just works to your advantage then.

'Nothing beside remains. Round the decay...'

[phatphoton]

'And on the cable these words appear --
"My name is Apple (tm)(c)Inc., king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"'

Do they even fill the same role?

[Baloroth]

After a quick glance at NFC, it seems like Bluetooth and NFC don't even fulfill the same roles. NFC only has a working range of 20cm or less, while Bluetooth can reach for something like 20-30 meters (in extreme cases). That seems like it would make NFC useless for headsets, as a phone in the pocket is going to be more than 20cm away from your ear. Same thing for laptops. Also, NFC has an extremely low data rate compared to Bluetooth, so your not going to use it for file transfers. Seems like NFC is mostly useful for things like credit cards/ID badges/ etc. which Bluetooth would be useless for, since it needs pairing, while Bluetooth is used for voice/video communication, file transfers, and the like.

Am I wrong about this? Anyone know more about NFC compared to Bluetooth? I do see that Bluetooth 4.0 is low energy, so it could fill some of the roles of NFC, but it can't do passive RFID like NFC can, so again, different technologies for different uses. Seems like the story (at least the summary) is just sensationalist speculation. Seems like not using NFC would be quite stupid on Apple's part in any case, since nearly everyone else is. Having the iPhone/ MacBook not work with actually deployed technology seems like it would be a huge mistake for Apple.

Re:Do they even fill the same role?

[seattle_coder]

Until recently there's been arguably no overlap between Bluetooth and NFC, but the Bluetooth 4.0 spec includes the Bluetooth low energy feature, which can be used over shorter ranges and use far less power, even less power than NFC when communicating with active RFID devices. Given that mobile devices are already expected to have Bluetooth, it makes some sense if Apple's goal is to push for a combined "NFC" payment and Bluetooth device solution. The question is whether payment processing equipment manufacturers will go along.

Re:Of course they are

[JBMcB]

Remember when Apple made high-end tools for artists instead of crippled plastic toys to lock in sheep consumers? Oh, Wozniak, how we miss you...

By high end tools for artists you mean the Apple II? Woz had little to do with the Mac.

Doesn't matter

[gaspyy]

If bluetooth transfer is available only between two Apple devices, it won't mean much.
I actually hate this attitude.

Why can't I take a photo with my Blackberry and transfer it to my iPad? Why can't I download a pdf on the iPad and transfer it to my Playbook via bluetooth?
There's no technical reason why I could not transfer files and settings (such as calendar and address book entries between an Apple device and any other phone). This is old tech.

I managed to find a way to transfer files via ftp, making the iPad an ftp server and connecting with the playbook/torch as a client but this obviously requires a wifi connection and of course I can't transfer photos or music from the ipad this way.

Re:Of course they are

[beelsebob]

You're right, they're pushing thunderbolt because of lock in, not because it's an intel defined spec that intel have already said they'll be building into all their next generation of chipsets. And not because it's a fast bus that integrates PCIe and allows them to do things like ship monitors that act like docking stations (see the new cinema display that has gigabit ethernet, firewire, usb, audio and video all running off the same standard intel connector).

Of course, it's apple, and therefore it's all about lock in... not actually just being better at the job.

Apple did it with USB

[Quila]

The iMac was the first computer to ship with USB standard. It's dropping of legacy ports wasn't copied in the PC world for years.

It could jsut mean...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It could just mean that we have an opportunity to speculate wildly on basis of limited information.

I saw a clincher for me

[Pop69]

If Paypal want to be involved with NFC then I want absolutely nothing to do with it, BT here I come