"[W]e could get on very happily if... wireless... advanced no
further than at present...."
-Edward Arthur Burroughs, Bishop of Ripon, 1927.
Wireless is hardly a new idea, nor is it a sure win. They had wireless on the Titanic, and a precious lot of good it did them, although if early-20th Century wireless had advanced to the point of pinging submerged masses of ice, those passengers might have got on a bit more happily, it seems to me, with all due respect to the Bishop of Ripon. I imagine it's what you do with the wireless that determines whether you get on very happily or hit an iceberg and drown like a rat. Me, I'm a technological optimist, although I've never been a particularly strong swimmer....
On April 1, Apple gave itself a birthday present of Bluetooth support. Itself's grateful reaction: "Perfect! Just what I needed!" and so it was. Just what it needed. Apple was late to the game with support for the Bluetooth wireless standard, but now that it's on the field, it just might steal a few bases, if not the ball.
The implementation of the Bluetoothification of the Mac was commendably smooth. Instead of building a Bluetooth receiver into the next generation of machines and supplying the software support in the next version of the operating system, Apple just posted the software to its site as a free download and blessed a USB device that solves the hardware part of the puzzle at a modest cost. They're even offering the device for sale on the Apple site. Problem (problem for Apple, that is, and for you if you've been thwarted by the lack of Bluetooth support for your Mac) solved. A few clicks, a brown-truck delivery, and your existing Mac is able to talk to any Bluetooth device you may have lying around the house. At least if your existing Mac meets the compatibility specs: Mac OS X v10.1.3 and a free USB Port.
Bluetooth is best at short range, like the typical distance between a computer and its mouse. All you can do with Apple's Bluetooth for now is let your Mac talk to third-party Bluetooth devices, but I would expect the most useful Bluetooth devices, soon, to be devices that Apple offers. Like mouses and keyboards. I don't have any inside knowledge about such products, but it just seems logical.
But Apple was already all over the other big wireless standard, 802.11b, also known as Wi-Fi or — in the Apple world — Airport. If you believe Dave Farber, and you should, Wi-Fi is about to take off. Wi-Fi is more appropriate for longer-range connections, like LANs. I've had an Airport LAN with half a dozen computers on it for over a year now, and I refer to us Airport networkers who can't imagine going back to cat-5 cable clutter as airheads.
I recently added a new wireless device to my Airport network to solve a knotty problem that had come up. To get the maximum range out of my Airport network, I relocated the Airport Base Station to another building. The networked printer, however, needed to stay where it was, near the people who use it most. The former solution of hanging the printer off the Ethernet port of the Base Station would no longer work, since I was reluctant to tear up the street to run cable between buildings, particularly after investing in wireless networking. Not to mention the fact that I'm using the first-generation Base Station with only one Ethernet port, and I've recently given that to the DSL modem. So I bought a wireless print server from HP, and now the printer is a full citizen of Wirelessland. Or wireless LAN. Now I notice that Ricoh has come out with a Wi-Fi camera, and I'm thinking how convenient it would be to take a series of outdoor pictures and not have to worry about filling the camera and going back to the office to dump them to the computer, because I could be uploading the pictures wirelessly to my office computer as I take them. At least so long as I stay within 150 feet of my office.
But Wi-Fi and Bluetooth aren't the only wireless standards out there, nor are wireless mouses and keyboards and LANs the whole wireless story. Here's a short list of other wireless challenges that Apple may or may not want to meet:
- FM radio. First International Digital, a Motorola spinoff, has come out with a wireless device that beams songs from an MP3 player to an FM radio, using FM rather than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. It stays on the FCC's good side by limiting its range to a few feet.
- Then there's the low-power wireless technology being developed by a Berkeley professor. His idea is to develop wireless technology with power consumption around a thousandth of what Bluetooth uses. That means the devices wouldn't need batteries -- they would just sort of suck up power from the air. They also wouldn't do much -- the other half of the equation is ultra-low bandwidth. He's hoping to field a demo system this year.
- Why not extend the Digital Hub to the prototypical American male's second home: the car. Not only would that FM device work well with car stereos, but Ford thinks its cars are ideal wireless platforms. And while Apple's on the road, it might as well look into truckstops. Technology Review says truckstops are hotbeds of wireless activity, and that truckers make the best wireless beta testers. But let's not overlook McDonald's as part of the Digital Hub strategy: Timex has developed a wristwatch that you can use to buy burgers and gas — wirelessly.
- Maybe coffeeshops are more Apple's style. A number of companies, including Joltage and Deep Blue are rushing to help coffee shops and other retail establishments offer free or paid wireless access to their customers. Why not an Apple/Mac package that lets these same stores offer photo services? The pitch: Apple lets you order prints or albums from your digital photos while sipping a latte? I'd go for it.
But maybe I shouldn't complicate things. Some of those suggestions involve new markets, but some involve new protocols, new standards. I imagine we will all get on very happily in the wireless waters if we can just avoid the icebergs. Which, at present, seem to be:
- standards (should have some, but not too many), and
- security (should have just enough, like Baby Bear's porridge).
Please excuse it if I rambled on this month more than I usually ramble on; I've set up a wireless news page and I'm suffering from information overload.
