My new Bluetooth card
That's a lifesize pic of my new Bluetooth card for my PC from an unknown (to me) company called MSI. After I got everything set up, I was able to synch my Nokia with my computer with no wires!! It was sorta like infrared - except that I don't have to think about where the phone is. It can be in my pocket or my bag and it auto-detects the Bluetooth signal coming from my PC and hooks up. Then I initiate the synch and poof, all done. It has a kick-ass range too. I was well across my office today still receiving a signal. Woohoo!
I mean, it's not perfect by any stretch, don't get me wrong. There's a LOT of warts getting the whole system working and using it. (I'm not using a Mac, after all). First, it took me a bit to get the computer and phone talking: The software drivers aren't particularly user-friendly and are oriented towards inter-computer networking (god knows why at top speeds of less than a megabyte a second) and the "passkey" was hidden away in a right-click menu under 2 levels down. This took me 15 minutes to find after selecting 30 different options involving serial connections and IRC ports, etc. I'm still not exactly sure what I did to get it all working.
That's this card's drivers. Adding pain to this is the fact that it's not possible - that I can find - to start a synch from the phone itself. I'd love to be in a meeting, wondering if there's any new calendar items or tasks in Outlook and synch to my computer in the other room by touching a button. This doesn't seem possible. Also like I said before, Nokia's synch software is a horribly user-unfriendly application. Miserable really.
However, this stuff can and will improve. A REAL opportunity would be to write a cool synch application for the Nokia/Symbian. A PIM that talked Bluetooth and iSync would be perfect. Actually, I'm thinking that if Spaces had a module like that, it could be rebranded for mobiles and really make a killing. We'll have to wait and see if Nokia improves the app at all when it launches the 3650, but if not - there are millions of people who probably will be willing to find something user-friendly to use and manage synching like the Palm Desktop, but oriented more for mobiles.
Just my initial thoughts... let's see what more I can do with this bad boy!
-Russ
Later... This link is a great tutorial on how to set this all up on the PC. Judging from his screens, the Bluetooth drivers are all standard as this looks exactly like what I've got, even though they're different cards. This setup is insanel complex. Why don't engineers get their heads out of their asses and design easy to use solutions?