Is This iPhone Working with a Bluetooth Keyboard?
Hope you like silent movies, because that’s what the above video is. That’s OK because a picture is worth a thousand words, right? The vid is a demo that shows Apple’s wireless Bluetooth keyboard typing on a jailbroken iPhone. Is it really? I obviously can’t tell for sure: I do see a bodiless hand typing on a Bluetooth keyboard and I then see the characters appear on the iPhone. But I also see a WiFi icon and more telling: I don’t see a Bluetooth icon. Hey, this is jailbroken territory; I suppose anything is possible. 
But why is it so impossible for this functionality out of Apple? From what I’m piecing together out of their “we don’t do netbooks” phrasing, Cupertino feels they have a viable uber-smartphone device that already competes in the low-cost computing area. Why not support the Bluetooth profile for keyboard input, then? I wouldn’t expect most mainstream owners to use it, but there’s more than enough of us geeks out there with folding, wireless keyboards just looking for a home. Oh, and while you’re at it Cupertino: if you’re going to mess with the iPhone Bluetooth profile support, could you at least add wireless stereo functionality?
An external keyboard for the iphone would be awesome. Please apple please!!!
Apple has not enabled bluetooth keyboard support due to the power draw (or so I have heard form a developer friend). I believe they think that the use of a bluetooth keyboard will cause the battery life to be shortened dramatically. Besides if apple were to ever release a larger screened iPod Touch (7 -9 inch), there would be no motivation for current iPhone and iPod Touch users to upgrade to it (if their current devices had Bluetooth Keyboard support). Apple would Most likely relegate the bluetooth keyboard support to the larger device, with a presumably larger battery, and fill the “netbook void” with it. I Hope for such a device, but don’t see it actually happening.
I hear what you’re saying, but then why have Bluetooth support for phone usage if it’s a power draw issue?
I’d think far more people would/do use BT for longer handsfree conversations than for shorter keyboard entry if it were available. Either way, I think you’re closer with the upgrade factor. I expect we’ll see support for additional profiles in the next iPhone version.
Not arguing that at all.
I notice the battery usage on my iPhone declines steeply when using my BT headset. I personally think it was a cop-out excuse to the developer. As for the upgrade factor, BT Keyboard support is a a software change. Apple would surly anger allot of us customers if they tied that support to a the purchase of hardware. Just look at the software feature parity between Gen 1 and Gen 2 iPhones. (GPS was a big hardware change, however, they made the software available with wifi triangulation.)
That being said I rather have “cut and paste” over BT keyboard support
Completely agree on the upgrade point you make. There’s no reason Apple couldn’t add the profile to Bluetooth for all of the iPhones. I probably should have been more specific: I expect better Bluetooth support in a firmware update. In my mind, I’m equating that with new hardware, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be applied to new firmware prior to any new hardware. Cut and paste would surely get more usage from many folks, for sure!
I was sure that is what you meant! We’re thinking along the same lines, I believe.
Question, does the BB Storm support BT keyboards?
Apparently so:
http://shop.crackberry.com/freedom-universal-bluetooth-keyboard/14A42A229.htm
Thanks for checking that out!
I think its VNC, so its not really connected at all.
VNC is definitely running on this jailbroken iPhone – so the keyboard is simply connected to a mac via bluetooth, which then is controlling the iphone through vnc over wifi. I was doing this after reading a recent article in controlling the iPhone over VNC – it’s dead slow by the way – but fine for typing (!).
The video probably only meant to show how great it would be, rather than cause the tsunami of articles about some hacker’s ability.
There’s many things the iPhone/iPod touch COULD do. Unfortunately, Apple makes money and wants to feed us the technology ‘updates’ in stages. just think how euphoric people will be when the iPhone camera is upgraded to 4MP, or even to incorporate a flash… gives me shivers.
My old N95 (with 8GB card) pre-iPhone era connects to a BT keyboard, has 5MP camera, does video, has so-so flash, runs TomTom navigation software, and can do wifi tethering, so my iPod Touch can browse anywhere I go. Sure, it’s square, ugly UI, but it works, and I can talk with it, whilst playing with the iPodTouch. I can also listen to music/videos on the Touch without hindering my phone’s battery life.
Best of both worlds. The one-device-does-all will be fine once they sort out battery life. I remember being ecstatic when early mobile phones reached a one day battery life, then suddenly we were up to a week’s usage. Now, with more demanding devices, we’re back where we started…
End of rant – I’m getting back to do some work, to earn money, to buy the next thing Apple releases. (I do wish they’d hurry up)
YES IT IS VNC! Thank you! I thought I was the only one who thought this through.
This makes me so ANGRY. This is a fake. If you notice he/she is using VNC! What is not shown is that they are actually connected to their computer through VNC, and are basically just typing into the computer which is connected to the iPhone NOT directly from keyboard to iPhone!
After posting the precious message on the authors blog…
Fair enough,
I got an almost immediate response from the author of this post/video explaining a few things. To be short yes this is VNC, and from what I understand here, meant to show a proof of concept which he is currently experimenting with.
@ubiq_01
Please say that you are using VNC, and how you are just using to work on other parts of the project and using existing technology to be able to skip a couple steps for the moment during development.
Thanks for the immediate reply, but please do remember to put some type of note in the description otherwise people get the wrong idea and if they know what is happening (as I did) get angry because of the lie; or otherwise begin posting everywhere about how to do something that is not yet capable.
I do see some icon just before the battery that looks like bluetooth logo. It is little blurry so not 100% sure but it does look like bluetooth.
Even if it worked, it’s hardly practical. I’ve tested a similar set up some ten years ago by connecting an Apple Newton keyboard to a Palm Pilot.
The letters on the screen are so small that you cannot sit up comfortably like you would with a normal computer screen. You’ll crouch over to be able to see what you type. This gets very uncomfortable after just a few minutes. And here you don’t even have a cradle that puts the device up at an angle.
So, don’t think this will be useful if it ever gets implemented.
We’ve managed to get a standard external keyboard working under iPhone OS 2.0 with no jailbreaking. Check it out:
http://www.perceptdev.com/labs/content/iphone-keyboard-no-jailbreaking-required-using-20-sdk
Well, I think there are at least two movies deserving this title. These are Terminator 4 and Transformers 2. What do you think?
P.S. To moderators: sorry for possible writing to a wrong category but I didn’t find any other category for general chat.
Hello
I am a stupid person when it comes to pcs. I bought a virus blocker…software, that was from the uni I will go to. And after that and a full scan, I could no longer use firefox or jabber messenger. I deleted them and downloaded them again, restarted my PC thousands times, but nothing is working. I keep getting a message that something needs to be done with my fire wall and HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP ports.
Any advice someone?
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Number one zygor