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Leopard, Bluetooth and my new Pantech Breeze

by Erica Sadun Aug 26th 2008 at 8:00PM

It may be a personal preference, but I try not to use or abuse phones that can't survive a 3-foot drop onto concrete. That's why last week I ordered myself a sweet little Pantech Breeze.

It offers one killer feature that I refuse to live without: a dedicated speakerphone button. I have this on my beloved Kyocera Slider and I demanded it on any new phone that I would buy. The Breeze brings that to the table along with a video camera and full Bluetooth support. After rebates, the phone cost about $70 and works perfectly with my iPhone SIM.

So after unboxing my new toy, I enabled Bluetooth on the phone and opened Leopard's Bluetooth File Exchange.

BFE isn't some super-spiffy CoverFlow all-dancing all-singing phone interface. It's a simple little utility program (with the emphasis on "utility") that allows you to browse your BT connected devices and use its drag-and-drop interface to transfer data to and from the unit.

Leopard recognized my phone without incident and opened the browsing window shown here. It took just a few clicks to offload my latest pictures from the phone and drag them into iPhoto. Going the other direction, I threw a few mp3 files into my Download > Audio folder and they instantly appeared onboard, ready to play.

Obviously the Pantech Breeze isn't the iPhone (even as I end up tapping its screen and wondering why it's not responding) but in some ways, it should have been. Why does Leopard offer this fantastic Bluetooth interaction between phone and Macintosh for an also-ran third party phone, while balking at any iPhone interactions? This is the interaction that should have been on my iPhone, using functionality already built into Leopard. I wonder why it wasn't baked into the flagship Apple product of the century.



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It may be a personal preference, but I try not to use or abuse phones that can't survive a 3-foot drop onto concrete. That's why last week...
 

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Fabio

The convenience of exchanging files through an iPod with bluetooth would be really bad for the ITMS.

I think that this is the ONLY reason why apple "locked" the bluetooth in the iPhone only to the audio services.

August 27 2008 at 8:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
massimo.berta

Thanks man, this is absolutely useful shortcut!

August 27 2008 at 3:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sam

Here's my favorite OS X bluetooth shortcut that I discovered in one of those "I wonder if this will work..." moments.

Select a file in finder and hit cmd+shift+b.

The bluetooth file exchange window will show up and ask you which device you want to send it to. Select your phone (or whatever) and voila - your file is being transfered. Super easy, super fast, super effective.

I use it all the time to get .cabs onto my AT&T Tilt (reg hack required to enable OBEX file exchange).

August 27 2008 at 1:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Sam's comment
massimo.berta

Thanks man! that's absolutely usefull shortcut!

August 27 2008 at 3:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bill G

jeyadev's hit the nail on the head.

iPhone sync/BT functionality with the Mac has been undeveloped/crippled so that it's equivalent to that on Windows.

August 27 2008 at 12:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mare

I'm sure Apple will open up Bluetooth on the iPhone in one of the next versions. After all Apple wants you to buy a new iPhone every year, just as with iPods.

If they include all features now, Apple wouldn't sell new iPhones to current users anymore.

August 26 2008 at 10:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mare's comment
Johnny

Well put. You can have a cookie for that. Frustrating, but true.

August 27 2008 at 10:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeyadev

cos then the PC using crowd would scream at Apple, and demand the same functionality on their WinXP & Vista boxes.

This is why everything and anything related to iPhone is passed via iTunes, even though iSync is a much better sync app.

August 26 2008 at 10:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan Woods

Does it sync with iSync?
Being a computer user, and not a programmer, I prefer the ease of use of the iPhone or a Phone which works perfectly with iSync over something I have to hack to get it to behave properly.
That's one of the reasons I prefer a Mac to a Windows PC. With Windows you have to hack to get a Windows-Mobile phone to sync properly, with a Mac and an iPhone, it all just works!

August 26 2008 at 10:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Dan Woods's comment
Paul

doesnt your "throw hard enough, at a hard surface" example holds true for most phones?

August 26 2008 at 11:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hafiz

Great idea. I did this a while back with my razr v3- downloaded all the photos off of it using Leopard's BFE. Just in case I lose my phone or retire it, I still got my photos :)

August 26 2008 at 9:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hafiz

Great idea by the way. I did this a while back with my Razr V3- downloaded all the photos using Leopard BFE just so in case I lose my phone or retire it, I still got my photos. :)

August 26 2008 at 9:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
saycarramrod

I liked Erica better a year ago.

August 26 2008 at 9:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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