Mac 101: Bluetooth basics

I am new to apple imac G5 and in the specs it says
it has Airport extreme ready based on 802.11g specification IEEE 11b wi fi certified)4:and all this is greek to me I know it has something to do with wireless. And i have no desire to go wireless. can you tell me do i need bluetooth at all. and what is a Bluetooth module what is its purpose?

The iMac bluetooth is put on discoverable for awhile and turned it off after reading this. Want to know how to see if people use the bluetooth on the iMac. When looking at the advance part of the bluetooth preference, the part that say to let another use the Internet with bluetooth, there is a serial port call bluetooth PDA sync. Is it a built in serial port on the iMac? Should it be remove? Thanks.

I have had endless problems with Bluetooth on my MacBook. I bought one of the first MacBooks and the behavior has been the same with Tiger and Leopard.

Very often the Bluetooth hardware will cease to exist! Restarts, PRAM resets, I've tried everything and nothing works until the Bluetooth device decides it's had enough hide-and-seek and come back to life. Logic board has been replaced and still nothing.

I'd like to know whether anyone with one of the newest MacBooks has had any similar problems.

Bluetooth interferes with wifi on my intel iMac, making it unusable. In fact, if there are any bluetooth devices nearby then I get trouble.

Im less than impressed.

Is it just me, or is it ironic that while you can sync, transfer files, and tether via Bluetooth with Windows Mobile and BlackBerry phones, you cannot do it with the iPhone?

Yes, they ned to have A2DP support in iPhone for Chrissakes!!!! Blackberry and Palm have had it for awhile now (Palm's is via software, but works flawlessly for me on my Centro, I stream music from it through my Sony Xplod-MX2XXX and it actually sounds AWESOME, there are settings for quality like 320, 160, and 64k and I'm amazed at the quality, almost CD-like. iPhone really should have this, touch too...c'mon Apple...or is it a sofware fix? I dunno personally, but if so, bring on a 3rd part app to allow it!!!!

I have a Blackberry Pearl phone. I send pictures I take with my phone to my computer and the Bluetooth pairing is not the only needed action here. You must also click on the "Sharing" icon in the System Preferences and turn on Bluetooth Sharing. Otherwise you will not be able to send files to your Mac even after you have paired the two devices. When researching this issue initially I read a comment that this additional Bluetooth Sharing is only a stipulation in Leopard - it did not exist in Tiger.

Bring back Bluetooth and address book pairing to allow me to send and recieve texts via my mac with my phone in my bag like I could in tiger. While apple are doing that they can add iPhone support to it as well

Bah, Bt is a b0rked as ever even in 10.5.4 and they don't look like they'll fix it soon :

1) Scrolling through the list of already paired devices is jerky with pauses of a few seconds. This is 100% reproducible.

2) This is probably a CSR chip firmware glitch, but I'll mention it none the less : on a second gen MBP 2.1Ghz, when listening to A2DP audio, cracks and pops will eventually make their way in ruining the whole experience.

Adi

One correction:

You should always leave Discoverable unchecked on the computer unless you are seeking the computer from another device. Then uncheck Discoverable on the computer once it's paired.

When seeking and pairing peripherals like mice, keyboards and headsets FROM the computer, Discoverable should remain unchecked.

Save yourself some battery drain and a potential security risk by making sure Discoverable is unchecked unless you're actively seeking the computer.