When all of those iPhone 3.0 features were first announced, one of the features that stuck out most to me was the incoming A2DP ability -- the new iPhone OS will let you stream out music to a Bluetooth source, like headphones... or your car. And over at Cars.com, the guys got their hands on a Toyota Venza with Bluetooth capability, and did just that, as you can see in the video above. It's pretty slick -- no wires, no annoying pairing, just hit the Bluetooth button on the iPod, choose the car's Bluetooth source, and press play. We're not sure about audio quality (it should be at least listenable), but it looks super cool.

There are, as usual, some catches. I for one was disappointed to hear that this A2DP ability won't work with first-gen iPhones like mine -- you'll need to have a 3G to do something like this. And of course, this will require the iPhone OS 3.0, which isn't technically out yet (though devs in Apple's development program are playing with it right now, which is why you can see it in the video above). And finally, you'll need a car with the Bluetooth capability, which (though I haven't owned or shopped for a car for a few years, so maybe things have changed a bit) is still kind of hard to find.

But hey, even if you're not there yet, here's a look at the future. Where we're going, you won't need wires to get your iPod playing music on the car stereo.

Kensington is well-known in the Mac and iPhone space as a provider of peripherals. At Macworld Expo 2009, they've introduced a ton of new products, many designed to help you (in the words of Jim Morrison) keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.

I visited with Olantha Boeker of Kensington on Tuesday to see what's new from Kensington. There's the beautiful SlimBlade Trackball for those who prefer using trackballs, the new Bluetooth Hands-Free Visor Car Kit, some new wireless mice, power peripherals, and more.

Check out the video on the next page for more details, and visit the Kensington website to see what's new for '09.

Leopard's Bluetooth feature is one of those things that's easy to forget about until you need it, then you're glad you have it. Let's take a look at some ways to get the most out of this under-utilized tool.

In order to use your Mac with another Bluetooth gadget like a mobile phone or headset, you'll need to pair it with that specific device. Locate the Bluetooth settings under System Preferences and turn the Bluetooth power on. Then also check the box marked "Discoverable." This will allow other devices in range to see your Mac.

Make sure the device you want to pair with the Mac is powered on and also discoverable (check the owner's manual for specifics on how to manage the Bluetooth settings on your mobile phone or headset). Next, click the Bluetooth icon found near your clock on the toolbar at the top of your screen and select "Set Up Bluetooth Device." Follow the Mac's onscreen steps that explain how to add the eight-digit passcode that will allow your two devices to talk to each other.

Once you've established a connection between your Mac and another gadget, your computer stores the info until you delete it -- there's no need to add a new passcode each time. When you're done using a Bluetooth device with your Mac, be sure to uncheck the "Discoverable" option to prevent anyone else from pairing a device with your computer. When you're ready to re-pair a device, just click on the Bluetooth icon, and select the gadget from the dropdown list.

One last thing: If you're not using Bluetooth on your laptop, make sure it's turned off to preserve battery life.

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.

Who says crime doesn't pay?

Aliph, makers of the ultra-cool noise-reducing Jawbone Bluetooth headset, have come up with a great marketing scheme. If you live in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, or Washington -- all states with laws requiring hands-free use of mobile phones -- and receive a ticket for yapping with your iPhone plastered to your ear, Jawbone will deduct $20 off the purchase price of one of their headsets.

You can't get a discount on the Silver Tongue model, but the prices for the Goldy Lips and Blah Blah Black versions end up at $129.99 and $109.99 respectively. All you need to do is go to the Jawbone website, look for the Hands Free Ticket Processor, and enter your state and ticket number. $20 is taken off the original purchase price, and you're ready to go.

This is one case where I wish I did live in a nanny state that was forcing me to use a hands-free kit!

A lot of folks had been hoping for support for the A2DP Bluetooth audio stack in the 3G iPhone. (A2DP allows for stereo music over Bluetooth in addition to the standard mono Bluetooth headset audio.) Unfortunately, Apple did not gratify this particular wish, but now Hong Kong-based accessory maker Brando is stepping to the gap with the INFINXX AP23.

Basically, it's a small dongle that plugs into the iPhone or iPod touch Dock port. You can then sync a pair of Bluetooth headphones (with microphone) to both the dongle and the iPhone allowing for phone as well as music support. While the INFINIXX is far from the first A2DP Bluetooth dongle, it is one of the smallest (~5 grams) and clearly takes its design cues from the iPhone.

The Brando INFINXX AP23 is $62. Standard shipping is $3 (7-20 working days) while express shipping (2-7 working days) is $39.

[via Gizmodo]

One of the the stranger changes in Leopard was the loss of the ability to dial (and send text messages) from the Address Book to a Bluetooth paired cell phone. Fortunately, however, Nova Media has released its Phone plugins to return this functionality to the Leopard Address Book and other applications through a system-wide Service.

When installed it allows you to call a number or send a text message just by right-clicking on the number in the Address Book (or selecting it elsewhere and invoking Phone plugins from the Services menu). It works with a number of phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson; check the compatibility list for details. Annoyingly the iPhone is not compatible.

Nova Media Phone plugins is $9.95 and a demo is available.

[via Hawk Wings]

I've always found it surprising that Apple did not have support for the A2DP Bluetooth audio profile in Tiger. A2DP is the profile for stereo music, as opposed to the lower quality mono profile for standard phone headsets. It was rumored, but not confirmed by Apple, that Leopard would fill this hole, and now it appears that's exactly what has happened. Ryan at Thoughts Abound has successfully set up Leopard with his Motorola S805 Bluetooth stereo headset to stream music wirelessly from iTunes. Not only that, he notes that "AVRCP is included as well so you can control your music from the controls on your headphones or stereo."

Unfortunately, A2DP compresses the audio, so it's not exactly a high-fidelity solution. But if you really want to listen to your tunes from your Mac without wires, this is probably the way to go.

Never say die to the old Apple II. A hacker named Vinchysky has melded a Disk ][ controller card with a Xilinx FPGA, which in normal-person-speak means he's enabled you to plug a Bluetooth dongle into an Apple II.

The hookup itself is basically just a USB connection, so you could conceivably transfer in any files you wanted from either a USB drive or a Bluetooth connection to any PC (or any Mac, or any iPhone... or anything with Bluetooth at all... Mind boggled yet?). The writeup of how Vinchysky created it is interesting, while a little on the technical side. Then again, the guy is working technical magic, so we'll let him have his jargon.

And the best part is that we're told this thing will be offered for sale-- he's planning to send them out at a tidy $160, within the next few weeks. If you've got an Apple II sitting around that you're just jonesing to get hooked up to a Bluetooth device, this is what you've been waiting for.

[via MacBytes]

This week's Ask TUAW takes us into questions about Bluetooth File Exchange, 5.1 audio, VNC, getting Adium and Quicksilver working together, EVDO, automated file management based on label color, and more. As always, please leave your own comments, and ask more questions for next week either in the comments to this post or using the tip form. Now let's get to it

Computerworld has an article up on some interesting products from Macworld that were potentially missed in the iPhone hoopla. Perhaps the most interesting of them is the hookup from Lenntek ($170). It is a two piece solution for integrating your iPod and Bluetooth phone. It features a transmitter that fits onto the Dock connector of your iPod and a wireless iPod remote into which you plug your own headphones. You pair your phone with the remote and then use it to listen to (and control) your iPod, but then when the phone rings, a press of a button will stop the music and connect the call. There is a microphone built into the remote so you can take your call and when it's finished you can get back to your tunes. This is not the first product of this type, but it seems that the sound quality is not bad (at least according to one review), and it definitely is a slick looking little device.

In addition to the full-size hookup for the full-size iPod, Lenntek is also working on a lanyard model for use with the nano, but that one does not seem to be available yet.

Okay, this is just plain cool. Watching MacBreak 59 I came across the Pen-it from Hitachi Maxell. I suggest you watch the video (the segment starts about 6:35), but basically it's an ink pen with built-in Bluetooth. When you use it to write on special paper (which has been pre-printed with literally millions of little dots), it records your strokes for later wireless upload to your Mac. Apparently the pen has a tiny camera which makes this possible. The Pen-it NOTES application on the Mac then retrieves your scribbles as vector data(!) which can be saved or further edited on the Mac. Of course, as Merlin Mann notes, this locks you into their paper, and they don't say exactly how much it will cost. It is also not clear whether this is compatible with Apple's Inkwell technology.

Since this is a brand new product for the Mac (though a PC version has been available for a while), their website is rather incomplete. However, they are running a special promotion for Macworld with a $100-off coupon, bringing the price down to $199 for the pen (and USB charger), one notebook, and the software. It appears that this is the same technology (from Anoto) behind Logitech's io2 Digital Writing System, but it's not clear at all whether the Logitech pen (which is Windows only), would actually be compatible. (If it is, three 128 page notebooks of the Logitech pen's paper sells for about $12.)

We've previously mentioned my favorite Apple Remote utility Remote Buddy, but the just-released RC1 adds support for the Nintendo Wiimote in addition to a variety of other supported remotes (including obviously the Apple Remote as well as offerings from Keyspan and Griffin). We've also previously mentioned several hacks, but this is (to my knowledge) the first commercial program to support the Wiimote as a useful input device.

A while back I looked at several of the Apple remote utilities, but I finally settled on Remote Buddy as being the most flexible. It includes a variety of control sets for popular programs (e.g. iTunes, VLC, QuickTime Player), without compromising access to Front Row. Perhaps my favorite thing about Remote Buddy, however, is the keyboard and cursor emulation, which I often use to scroll on screen text when I'm leaned back and reading. Remote Buddy is shareware and runs 9.99 Euros (~$13) while in beta, but will increase to 19.99 Euros upon release (which is presumably coming soon given the release candidate). I definitely recommend it. What remote utility do you use?

Following up on yesterday's "How to enable Front Row on the Mac Pro" post, Sam Obletz sent us a note alerting us to the fact that the instructions don't work if you're using a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. Fortunately, Sam included instructions that do work with the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. The steps trick the Bluetooth controller, receiver, and HID driver into thinking there is IR present.

First, read the original tip on on MacOSXHints.

The following steps are what you must do after adding the boolean value for M19-0a, M19-0b, and M19-1:

1. Click on the arrow to the left of M6.
2. Click on the first property that appears, whatever it is.
3. Press New Sibling, in the upper left of the window.
4. A new model string will be inserted and rename it to HIDRemoteControl.
5. Locate the new HIDRemoteControl line (it's in alphabetical order).
6. Change the type from String to Boolean.
7. Change the Boolean value to Yes.
8. Click on the arrow to the left of M6-events.
9. Click on the first property that appears, whatever it is.
10. Press New Sibling, in the upper left of the window.
11. A new model string will be inserted and rename it to HIDRemoteControl.
12. Locate the new HIDRemoteControl line (it's in alphabetical order).
13. Change the type from String to Boolean.
14. Change the Boolean value to Yes.

Thanks for the contribution, Sam!

This should please all you BlackBerry toting OS X users out there. Alex King has been on a mission for some software that would allow him to tether his Mac to his BlackBerry, enabling him to take advantage of the BlackBerry as a modem. He went so far as to collect a bounty of $700 for the first person to get this working.

Daniel Pasco got it working, and he has also gotten himself the bounty. Alex has tested it, but Daniel is still working out some of the kinks. It has been tested on the 8700g and the 8703e.

And remember, if you're a BlackBerry junkie you should be reading BBHub where BlackBerry is king!

[via jkOnTheRun]