A2DP and AVRCP

Yes, the AIRcable Headphones and Dongle DO work on ALL G3 and later powerbooks & iBooks. You need to use the supplied A2DP Dongle from AIRcable.

I have a pair for my old 'dual usb' iBook and they work great. Works on my wife's pismo. Works on my brothers 17" powerbook.

I even use it for skype. But, I have to use both a regular bluetooth dongle for the headset function (my ibook doesn't have built-in bluetooth) and the aircable A2DP dongle for streaming music from iTunes. But it works fine. And, they have an iTunes plug-in that works great!

A bit about A2DP:

A2DP needs both a software profile and supporting hardware in order to work AT ALL. Even if A2DP did work in 10.4.6, the OEM bluetooth HARDWARE implemetation by Apple would not support A2DP on ANY currently produced apple product. You would need an external A2DP Dongle (there are a few of these) or A2DP PCI card (not sure about this one).

Note: The current AIRcable dongle IS ONLY AN A2DP DONGLE FOR THEIR HEADPHONES. It does not work for other bluetooth functions like headsets or obex,...

Why do you think A2DP is hardware related?

It is not. Even with a Bluetooth 1.1 hardware (CSR BlueCore 01) you can run A2DP. Appleis using CSR BlueCore 02 and later which have Bluetooth 1.2. I cannot envision a reason why A2DP is hardware related.

Sure, software can support the A2DP standard, but the hardware is not built for the masive throughput that A2DP requires.

A good parallel is T1 vs. Dial-up internet connection: You can watch streaming 320x240 video on a T1 line, but if you try to watch the same streaming 320x240 video on Dial-up you get about a frame every 5 seconds.

Apple's hardware is not built for the A2DP throughput. It takes special (read: expensive) chips to achieve this. Even with the "+EDR" speeds. The BT chip needs to be optimized for A2DP.

Keep in mind that Bluetooth is a communication standard that is implemented with both software and hardware. You need both for it to function. it is used to enable certain functions between specifric devices. As a headset: headset profile. For file exchange: obex. ...

Regards - Dustin

Who told you that?

A Nokia 8800 mobile phone with A2DP for example – the only Nokia with A2DP at the moment – uses a CSR BlueCore3 ROM chip and according to its qualification the normal CSR HCI Stack. Okay, early Macs shipped with a BlueCore2, however, a BlueCore4 (with EDR) should have no problem with A2DP.

Yes, there exists a CSR BlueCore3-Multimedia chip used by Samsung and Motorola. However, these are one-chip (de/coding) solutions to reduce development cycle. The Nokia uses the dumb ROM version.

Ok - Since many of us don't have the level in depth of knowledge as some here do, I'll try to summarize and hope this is correct, let me know otherwise.

A2DP is really more a hardware issue (even though on the PC side they talk about the supporting stack of A2DP and installing the drivers for your BT dongle). The reason this is that there are different impelentations of A2DP by vendors (which is why my Plantronics 590A headset and adapter work together with high-quality audio, but other vendor headsets / dongles may not).

So most (not all) BT hardware can handle the data rate, and I think what we're really waiting for is BT to standardize A2DP so that properly implemented cross-vendor devices can communicate with one another using full A2DP.

It's not Apple's fault.

Does this sound right?

PB Ti 1GHz - The last of it's kind Mac OS X (10.4.5)

> A2DP is really more a hardware issue (even though on

the PC side they talk about the supporting stack of
A2DP and installing the drivers for your BT dongle).

I don't think that's entirely accurate. A2DP is just a profile, and from what I can tell it's a firmware profile. BT hardware doesn't need to know or care about the profile being used. Data is sent/received from/to the BT device, and that's all the hardware really should care about. The drivers and profiles are all software and/or firmware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2DP#Bluetooth_profiles


<SNIP>

> So most (not all) BT hardware can handle the data

rate, and I think what we're really waiting for is BT
to standardize A2DP so that properly implemented
cross-vendor devices can communicate with one another
using full A2DP.

I think that A2DP is a standard already. Any complete implementation of that standard should work with any A2DP device. Here's some info on BT profiles from the BT SIG:

http://bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Works/Profiles_Overview.htm

> It's not Apple's fault.

Well, it's not entirely Apple's fault, but they're certainly responsible for getting us an update.

In the case of the BT hardware in our iBooks, I believe it's a matter of just upgrading the firmware. The hardware is a Cambridge Silicon Radio BlueCore 3, which from what I can see clearly can handle A2DP and they do have firmware updates on their support site. I have no idea how to apply any of these updates at all, and quite frankly don't really want to try. I like my warranty. 🙂

Personally, I think all Apple needs to do is get an updated firmware package from CSR that has the stacks in it that we need, create an updater, and send it out with the next OS X patch. That's not a 100% verifiable fact, so take it with a grain of salt.

cheers,

/gam/

Doesn't sound right. The original Bluetooth radio has two connection types: SCO and ACL (synchronous connection oriented versus Asynchronious connection-less). The SCO was used for the mono audio (two way to support microphone for headset) and provided a reserved scheme that guaranted bandwidth for the audio. All other connections used the connectionless (ASL) model which is more like a packet/network interface.

While the original headset profile was based on the SCO interface, the new A2DP interface is based on the ASL packet interface. The only other requirement by the A2DP profile is the use of the manditory SBC (SubBand CODEC) which is how they digital encode the audio to send over the ASL link (also supports MPEG and ATRAC as options, but requires SBC). This CODEC will vary in data rate from 230-370Kbps (stereo, higher data rate, better quality).

What all of this means is that these A2DP headsets will work with existing Bluetooth radio hardware (which support 720Kbps datarates, and ASL connections). However software needs to encode (transcode on the fly) to the SBC format before sending to the radio. I believe this suggests that an update of the bluetooth driver is all that is needed to support these new headsets. Further the newer EDR Bluetooth radios is not a requirement (just provides more datarate headroom to run additional things at the sametime before running out of bandwidth).

In conclusion, Apple needs to update their Bluetooth stack to support A2DP which would then support these headsets with existing hardware.

I think this makes sense now. Bottom line is we ARE waiting on Apple to update the stack to support A2DP. And they may release this in a system update, or if we're lucky in a more timely independent patch. I can't imaging they won't, just a matter of time.

Thanks all!

Guys,
I just received the new Jabra BT620s bluetooth stereo headphones. I can pair with Apple Powerbook G4, but can not get iTunes music on the phones. Does anyone know how to stream iTunes to this Jabra device? Do I need to purchase one of those Jabra A2DP/AVRCP-compliant USB adapters to stream the music?
Thanks!

Yeah, you need an A2DP adapter to use 'em. Apple hasn't written the appropriate BT stack for the built-in BT hardware.

/gam/

I have a pair of Plantronics 590 blue tooth stereo headphones. They came with a small BT adapter that supports A2DP. The cool thing is, the adapter plugs into the audio out (headphone jack) on my Mac Mini or iPod, and delivers good stereo sound, no USB connection required.

How is it powered? I'm assuming it needs a battery of some sort, no?

/gam/

No needs battery, Only CHARGING

The headset and adapter charge via an included headphone stand that connects to AC, or one at a time via a supplied USB cable.

I also have an iCombi headphone set. Where did you find the AU13 USB dongle for purchase? I have looked high and low online and have not been able to find it anywhere!