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September 19, 2003

Apple Sports Bluetooth 1.2 Features

By Glenn Fleishman

Apple’s Bluetooth skips Wi-Fi interference: Apple slipped in a few features that will appear in the upcoming Bluetooth 1.2 specific in their new Bluetooth firmware and their new keyboard and mouse: adaptive frequency hopping. This feature, which will be available to older Apple Bluetooth equipment via firmware upgrades, takes advantage of an FCC ruling several months ago which provides flexibility for frequency hopping devices using 1 MHz per channel; formerly, devices had to hop among at least 75 channels, but they can now hop among just 15.

The adaptive hopping combined with Apple’s driver-level interaction between its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi subsystems allows their two 2.4 GHz wireless devices to co-exist without Bluetooth colliding with Wi-Fi. Broadcom provided the peripheral chips while CSR put the Bluetooth in the latest laptops. (Apple includes or offers Bluetooth for most of its machines now.)

Apple’s hardware product marketing director, Greg Jozwiak, told me that all previous Apple Bluetooth hardware, including all but the very first version of the D-Link USB Bluetooth adapter, would support adaptive hopping via firmware upgrades. Apple shoots and scores again on getting its wireless act together before their competitors have coordinated coming to market.

Posted by Glennf at September 19, 2003 2:26 PM

Categories: Bluetooth

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