Bluetooth Stereo Headphones Rock in iPhone 3.0!
OK, cheesy headline and all, the fact is that using a stereo Bluetooth headset with my iPhone 3G is absolutely great. This is only possible since the big iPhone 3.0 update, and let me tell you, it was worth the wait. I have long been a fan of wireless headphones, and it’s always pained me to not be able to do it on the iPhone — until now. A cool feature you can see in the screen image below is how the iPhone tells you the source of the output at the bottom of the screen. I guess that’s just in case you forget — they are wireless after all, and you might get confused where all that music is coming from. And no, I’m not going to bust a move like Kevin.
One weird thing, it seems there is no iPhone onscreen volume control in the iPod app with Bluetooth headphones. You HAVE to use the volume control on the headphones. A sad thing lacking is AVRCP, meaning no controlling the tunes from the headset. Bummer, Apple.
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No AVRCP? Suckitude!
maybe 3.1 update. :-)
Does A2DP work only in the iPod app, or does it also work in Pandora, Slacker, etc?
works with ALL iPhone audio, even key taps.
it if pandora,slacker.etc support it yes but it a third party app so apple and make them
Just like Apple fans to rave about what we other phone users have had for years. Congrats to Apple for catching up….almost
haha, typical. people are either iphone owners or iphone haters :oP
a product is more than the sum of its features. and if your own son learned to talk through A2DP you’d be raving too!
Can someone say…I wish I had an iPhone. Sounds like someone was never accepted by the cool kids in school.
So no control for headsets like Sony’s HBH-IS800? That’s really lame.
No volume control. someone at the sony store complained they weren’t loud enough. I’d like to soften them a little but can’t. looking all over for an answer to this. Great earphones, really small, light and simple! What to do??
I tried controlling the iPhone using my Tritton dongle.
- I held down the “-” button (volume down) and the screen showed “No voice dialing.”
- I held down the “action” button and the screen showed the “play/pause” icons.
- I held down the “+” button (volume up) and the phone started dialing the last number I had dialed recently. Ooooh, nice and handy!
- I can use the “action” button to play/pause Quicktime when running in Safari, whether it’s up front or in the background. Right now, I’m listening to di.fm’s House station using their AAC link, which starts their streams using Quicktime. Safari’s in the background with Quicktime loaded in a window (or is that “in a sheet”?) with Tweetdeck in front. The “action” button plays/pauses successfully. (This gives me the idea that all music players — hint Pandora — should take advantage of playing their music in Quicktime/Safari since they can be run in the background.)
I can pause and play the iPod player with the dongle (whether it’s up front or in the background), but cannot do the same with Pandora.
For volume, interestingly enough, my HTC dongle when paired with my HTC Advantage and HTC Fuze would control the volume on the device itself, not on the headset. With the iPhone, it only controls the volume on the headset and the iPhone volume control can be independently moved (though it doesn’t affect the volume playing through the headset).
I just found this out on another website while doing research on bluetooth stereo headphones. I was about to order the HBH-IS800 and at the last minute did a search in relationship to the iPhone. There were a couple of people who had been using 3.0 for a while, so they might have been developers. They said they had reported this to Apple as a bug and were disappointed to discover Apple had released it without fixing that.
I have the Motorola S9, which I’ve been using with my laptop, and the volume control works great, but as mentioned above, I can’t move through songs. It won’t pause either, unless a phone call comes through. I was only looking to replace these because I like to lay down on the couch while I’m listening to music and that’s not possible with the S9′s. I’ll cross my fingers for an update soon to fix this — and my 3.0 Wi-Fi woes — but that’s a whole other story.
Try the Motorokr S7-HD’s. They make it easier to lay down with, but they are over the ear style cans that are connected by a thin cord.
I just discovered this last night myself! Pulled out my old derelict cheap bluetooth earphones that I’d bought back when I had a Treo 750 and gave them a try. Turns out they weren’t so crappy after all, just my Treo was. They sound and work GREAT with the iPhone3GS.
Today I wore them on a bike ride, and I was disappointed to find they only controlled volume or took phone calls as well. I was hoping that was only because they were so old. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I googled and found your article here explaining why.
At least you saved me the money I was going to spend on newer headphones, thanks! :D
so what do you guys think is the best way to go? S9-HD? When I’ll have these on, I dont care as much about the call quality – because it’ll either be at the gym (if I ever go) or when listening to music/audiobook outside, and i wont want to talk to anyone anyways ;) In other situations, I’ll have my Blueant V1 or Supertooth Lite
The S9 is great in the gym as long as you do not sweat or move too much.
I had a pair and in the perfect position they are great, however this means the band of the earphones are suspended in space. Once you start jogging, the the band which is positioned at the back of the head drops and therefore pulls the ear buds out of position.
After a few months of sweating into them the buttons failed. This appears to be a consistent complaint.
Whats the best bluetooth stereo headset thats around 100 dollars, give or take a few
look at the Plantronics Voyager 855 Stereo Bluetooth Headset.
Going for $35 in Amazon from $150 retail, and very positive reviews.
Very light and the bonus of turning the stereo headset into an mono A2DP earpiece…a rare thing.
I use the little Tritton stereo headset dongle with a pair of Sony in ear buds. The bass is awesome and the sound is quite clear. I used another headset with my HTC Fuze (an HTC dongle) and it also worked fine. It wouldn’t work with the iPhone thoughand I had the Tritton laying around. Glad that I tried it!
I have the IS-800′s and the volume is uh: shattering. Crystal clear mind you but shattering. They do work really well for phone calls.
Apple puts this one down as “By design”.
Scotty – how is the bass on them? Is there any on headphone control at all? I’ve heard mixed things between pause and volume working, but not track advance to nothing at all….??
This is really a welcome!! I downloaded a movie direct to my ipod touch and I paired up my Nokia MD-7W portable bluetooth speakers to the ipod. Now I can watch videos or listen to music on the go without those irritating wires. The one problem I noticed was that when listening to music over bluetooth and using the web browser with about 6 pages open and constantly loading full web sites the connection starts breaking up. I believe that this is because the wifi and bluetooth both use the 2.4 Ghz spectrum. I have noticed this too with my E71 when using wifi and bluetooth especially when streaming music. The situation gets better when I switch to cellular data.