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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.

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.

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.

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