Apple Uses Bluetooth LE To Enable Apple TV ‘Touch To Set Up’ Via iOS 7 Devices | Hacker News Reader

Apple Uses Bluetooth LE To Enable Apple TV ‘Touch To Set Up’ Via iOS 7 Devices

techcrunch.com

44 pointsswamp4031 comments

Direct link instead of AOL's rewriting of AOL's summary of it -

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5900

I've been wondering recently if iBeacon is the first showing of a 2 year long plan to crush NFC and take over POS payments, or whether Apple released iBeacon just for better Passbook functionality, and then the world anointed it as the NFC killer and all-hail-the-new-king - and now Apple is scrambling to come up with a comprehensive plan to do what people think iBeacon was meant to do.

(They've delayed any detailed specifications for weeks now.)

Doesn't matter to me. Anything that finally gets Bluetooth LE on a roll is fine with me. It has awesome potential.

I think iBeacon is Apples response to NFC. NFC was poorly executed from the beginning. Google didn't push it hard, and Samsung implemented it wholeheartedly with gimmicky features like file transfer. No major retailer was ever involved that I or anyone I know care about. The most I saw NFC being used for was Samsung bus stop ads. What Apple has in it's hand and what Google is trying so hard to get is 500 million user accounts with CC information already entered via its app and music stores. The payment information is what the companies have a hard time getting. Wallet and Checkout never blossomed and all those reasons are why NFC is so anemic right now.

Also, NFC technology is a little clunky with 'turning on yet another protocol, setting up incoming connections, "it didn't work try again.", etc, etc'. The iPhone is the phone of the masses because they simplified or removed protocols like removable Li-ion, SD, USB, and NFC. The only protocols that remain are the most branded, and the most functional. (They are still working to perfect Siri :)

Developing well established existing technologies that people and phones are already used to (bluetooth) is key to Apple's strategy. NFC was DOA simply because Samsung has a hard time with implementation [ie: eye tracking, tv voice commands, and hand commands].

I don't know how Samsung's NFC implementation works, but the only correct way to use NFC or Bluetooth Low Energy is to exchange a session key, and then use WiFi for the actual data transfer. NFC and Bluetooth LE have way too low a data rate to be useful for anything else. (Well, I guess it's OK for syncing my step count from my FitBit.)

Actually, this makes me wonder why anyone bothered with NFC or Bluetooth LE for file transfer, etc., when WiFi Direct is just as good.

Can't Bluetooth LE "upgrade" the connection to full speed?

Also, since I'm asking: Does anyone know if my Bluetooth-LE-supporting HTC One will consume very little battery if Bluetooth is turned on? I have an inkling that it will need to keep advertising Bluetooth proper, so it will use as much battery as Bluetooth always has.

No. Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE are distinct, incompatible protocols.

That's sort of what it does. NFC is the initiator, Bluetooth is the transfer protocol. It's in the AOSP code and is straight forward.

In android, only things like links or contacts are sent directly through NFC. For large files, it uses bluetooth or WiFi direct. The use case is really good though, if you want to transfer a file, you just hold up your phone, touch the screen, and away it goes. All the bluetooth and WiFi setup steps are hidden (but to be honest, bluetooth in android is a bit dodgy. You can't even send arbitrary files without special programs).

Hmm.. Let me name a few big retailers that uses NFC

Macys Peets Coffee Walgreen

Both Peets and Macys deliberately placed labels by their cashier that reads: "pay with Google Wallet"

Why would actually tapping your phone onto the Apple TV be required? I thought iBeacons had a range of several meters.

From the article: > The instruction to ‘tap’ the device to the Apple TV is likely just to ensure proximity.

The API exposes several range-to-iBeacon constants, in this case they're probably going for touch (aka immediate) so your iPhone knows you're trying to set up the Apple TV, instead of popping the dialog on every phone in range.

In article it says you don't have to touch AppleTV. They were able to pair from 8 inch distance.

From my perspective, this seems why perhaps iBeacon isn't an NFC killer? NFC seems to have an advantage of requiring contact (baring a few millimetres gap because of device/case) to trigger an action (better for actions that are more 'intentional'?) whereas with iBeacon distance is bit of a woolly concept.

I don't think this is "iBeacons". This sounds like the MultipeerConnectivity framework, which uses both WiFi and Bluetooth and is agnostic as to which interface is used.

Everything is iBeacons these days.

Doesn't matter that Bluetooth LE has been out since 2010, and was first developed by Nokia in 2006.

I actually don't mind. I've been waiting for years for Bluetooth LE to take off. If this is what it takes, that's fine with me.

Can't the same thing be done using regular Bluetooth?

Isn't this specific thing being done using regular Bluetooth?

The benefit of BT LE is that the pairing process is supposed to take at most 6ms. Thus the requirement for 4S or later iOS devices.

Pretty sweet. I wonder if this was supposed to be part of the new AppleTV reveal in Oct?

is supposed to take at most 6ms. Thus the requirement for 4S or later iOS devices.

I don't follow the causation between the first and second sentences. Are iPhone 4 not fast enough or do they lack the proper BlueTooth technology?

The latter. The iPhone 4S was the first model with BTLE hardware.

It would require UI on the phone to start the setup process. Or an app to download and run.

By leveraging Bluetooth LE, every iPhone is always ready to start setup, without the significant battery hit that would have previously required.

iBeacon is done with BlueTooth LE. I'm curious as to whether or not Apple is to cripple this like the rest of their protocols by making it an Apple only, closed protocol. They seem to constantly cut their own throat with their fear of competition. It's especially annoying when they base these proprietary protocols on perfectly good open protocols (iMessage,iBooks,FaceTime/XMPP,EPub,SIP). As a developer I find it amazing that other software developers will even consider their products.

Great, this sounds like Apple is going to compete with NFC.... you know, a real standard. Like FaceTime, oh wait, like iMessage, oh wait, like AirDrop, oh wait.

This is Bluetooth LE, which is a standard.

Apple is making a bet on NFC like they did on Blu-Ray. Nothing has proven that NFC is going to change the world one device at a time yet, just ike so many computers still don't come with Blu-Ray drives. Besides, every iPhone and iPad currently for sale support BTLE, whereas there are only a handful of devices that come with an NFC chip. Why wouldn't Apple leverage a technology that all of their current devices support?

I agree with most of your argument, but almost every Android phone for the last 3 years has had NFC installed - so I'll bet the installed userbase is actually more than for Apple's Bluetooth LE.

And every Android phone has had BLE hardware, but no software because Google dragged their feet until this summer. The install base of BLE is far larger than NFC.

Bluetooth LE is in fact a standard, and is in fact much more widely deployed than NFC. Android already has support for it as of 4.3:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#LE_compati...

Apple only said they will make FaceTime an open standard and then didn’t do it.

While laughing at them or being angry at them for that is exactly right and good it’s also important to otherwise still be truthful.

Apple never made similar claims about iMessage and AirDrop. Those two are explicitly proprietary. iMessage most certainly is a resounding success, by the way.

There are some licensing and patent issues around FaceTime it seems. Apple shouldn't have so publicly promised that they'll open it up in all reality.

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