Bluetooth's Springboard

[Tycho Morgan]

I've had the words "Bluetooth's Springboard" scribbled in my notebook (yeah, I know the paper kind) for a few weeks now, and I think it's about time I wrote this thought.<br /><br />As some of you may know, I used to have a Handspring Visor. We're talking 18+ months ago, and a 2 megabyte model for which I had a stowaway keyboard, and that's about it. I didn't own any Springboards, and the reason I left was that it struck me that if I wanted to make any upgrade I had two options. I could get a number of springboards with a new Visor and pay an ungodly sum of money for them, or I could pay an ungodly sum of money for a Pocket PC and not have to fuss with springboards because the Pocket PC did it all and it was integrated. (I supose with this argument I've just contradicted my last thought post, oh well.) Even though I've faithfully used a Pocket PC and never seriously contemplated buying a Palm, I think the idea behind the springboard is edging on brilliant.<br /><br />Ultra-compatible and about as plug and play as they come, springboards were a wonderful idea that suffered poor execution, and unforeseen oddities in drivers and battery requirements. But the idea of drivers and requisite software that just installs itself on instillation is, in my opinion, a great one that I think could have amazing affects on the Pocket PC platform, as well as on desktop platforms. I think the springboard slot itself was poorly thought out, and I would hate to see it licensed, but I think the ideas could potentially be applied to Bluetooth with great success. <br /><br />What if Bluetooth devices all came ready to transmit their drivers and/or required software to your Pocket PC, Palm, desktop, laptop, or similar device? No hassle, no fuss, it just worked. What if there was some kind of protocol that let every Bluetooth device talk to each other without needing kind of special software. What if you never had to go to your desktop and it all worked instantly the moment you walked into range? Not having to deal with compatibility, drivers, or setup hassle is a Zen quality I could get used to. <br /><br />The Springboard philosophy is used fairly effectively in the case of the Compaq iPAQ sleeves, but again these are bulky proprietary contraptions that only cater to a small group of users, and are limited to a small fraction of one platform. In addition to Bluetooth, it would be cool to see CF and CF Type 1e cards (what the springboard should have been), PC cards and SD cards all provide this kind of functionality. <br /><br />Realistically, however, it is unlikely that we will see compatibility at the required level to produce such technology. The reason the Springboard and to a lesser extent the Compaq sleeve technology has been gotten to where it is, is that both have companies that provide guidelines and relatively simple standards: benefits that Bluetooth and other forms simply don't have.<br /><br />It's nice to dream though. Thoughts anyone?

[Steven Cedrone]

I can remember when Windows was only a hand full of disks, Ahhhh the good 'ol days: you only had to deal with a couple of .ini files....!

I doubt that with Plug-n-pray we would be able to "fit" the OS into a 32 MB envelope. With the number of manufacturers and flavors of Bluetooth and 802.11x how can the team program for every contingency??? (Then again, in the future the hardware standard for Flash ROM could be pushed to 64MB: so much for upgradeability......)

Even given a "base" set of instructions on the Pocket PC end for the manufaturer to "plug" into, and the device providing the drivers, we are talking about alot of code.......

In the mean time how about this: kill the "safe store" area, it might be used (but "safe store" is a BIG selling point, especially with units that don't have great standby time) for a "service pack" to add the functionality we crave........

Just my .02 (very late at night, I might add: excuse the spelling mistakes and incoherence :lol: )......

[Mike Wagstaff]

What if Bluetooth devices all came ready to transmit their drivers and/or required software to your Pocket PC, Palm, desktop, laptop, or similar device? No hassle, no fuss, it just worked. If only it could work like that. I see two major problems, however:

1. Every Bluetooth device would need some sort of storage area for the drivers, adding more cost.
2. Drivers are updated. Chances are that you would need a software update anyway to remove bugs, add functionality, etc...

But seeing as we're all allowed to dream, here's a couple of Bluetooth ideas that I would like to see implemented:

Bluetooth fold-up keyboard

Similar to the Stowaway that we all know and love, only this time there would be no need to physically connect it to your device. No more unwieldy PDA/keyboard balancing act, plus you would be able to use the keyboard when your PPC was in landscape mode.

To extend the dream further, how about if every desktop keyboard in the world had a built-in bluetooth transmitter and was compatible with a certain standard (to build on Sam's idea) that meant you could use it with any PDA?


External storage

Manufacturers! Fed up with having to include every single new storage slot under the sun? Fed up with having to make your Pocket PC about as pocketable as a laptop? The answer has arrived in the form of the BlueStore card!

Although access times are understandably slower than your average storage card, the fact that BlueStore cards can be stored in a pocket or briefcase rather than in the device itself means that the size of the device can be kept to a bare minimum. The age of the truly pocketable Pocket PC is upon us!


Xbox BlueBoy

The BlueBoy is a small credit card sized device that plugs into an Xbox controller port. When plugged in, this allows you to connect to any Bluetooth-enabled Pocket PC that, in combination with the supplied software, lets you combine the power of your PDA with the Xbox.

Features include:

* Use the touch-screen of your PDA as an input area (e.g. virtual keyboard for inputting text) and the joypad/hardware buttons as a regular remote controller.
* Save games to the PDA's internal memory/storage card.
* Special Xbox + PDA games are under development, bringing PDA/Xbox integration far closer than anyone would have imagined possible.

[JMountford]

I think in the beginning this was the dream for Bluetooth, but as we all know Bluetooth's reality is mired in chaos.

The reality is you can not store all drivers in the chip, because it would increase size and cost and drivers need to be updated. But, why not make a Bluetooth Download and CD. the CD would come with EVERY bluetooth Device and provide as many drivers as possible. So that if you buy a bluetooth device you have the drivers for EVERY bluetooth device out there!!! Furthermore Bluetooth would creat a new Website (Bluetooth.org) that would have a data base of Every single Bluetooth device driver out there. It would be a provision of the BT License Agreement that the Device manufacturer MUST supply their BT driver emediately to the Bluetooth web site upon completion and update it when ever it was revised. The software CD included with each Blutooth device would install and Updater like Windows Update that would be configurable and transparently download new drivers at user defined intervals. Thus illiminating any interoperability issues. BT Drivers would HAVE to be made for any OS that the device could Even remotely be used on.

I know this was long winded, but truth be told this is actually a very realistic and feasible solution.

[JoeThielen]

BT Drivers would HAVE to be made for any OS that the device could Even remotely be used on.


I think your vision is a wonderful one. One website for all BT downloads. But I fear that your last statement about bluetooth drivers on ANY OS (that supports bluetooth) must be supplied is quite a ways off. They don't even do this for things that do work (i.e. HP making Linux drivers for consumer printers and scanners). If they're not doing this for existing hardware, whose to say it will be done for BT???

Again, I admin, the vision sure does sound NICE! :idea:

[Hans the Hedgehog]

I remember reading something very similar in Byte magazine eons ago-- when it was still a viable and thriving print magazine. Anyways, the idea back then was to put all the drivers on the card or device in Forth or some such language to automically download and install on the parent machine. Handspring got it right with the Springboard, but after all this time it's sad to see that only one company had the decided to realize that vision.

Personally, I would love to see this happen. I would gladly pay the extra $$ that it would take to put a bit of flashRAM on a card to hold new drivers and allow for the updating of those drivers. We can only hope...

Happy tapping,
Hans

[scottmag]

I think the successful implementation of auto-installing SpringBoards had more to do with limited hardware compatibility than clever use of adaptable drivers. All Visors have been functionally identical, and I think the OS used has only advanced from “3.1H” to “3.5.2H” over the entire history of HandSpring’s existence.

I agree with you though on several things. I bought, and still use, a Visor Deluxe because I liked the idea of snapping in whatever latest hardware innovation was developed and having it seamlessly install. SpringBoard modules also clean up after themselves and take away any trace of their existence when they are removed. I would love to see that feature implemented in other peripherals for other platforms. I would also be an advocate for cross-platform peripherals. The economies of scale from selling a keyboard, for example, that could work with PalmOS, WindowsCE, Symbian, etc. would bring down the prices and increase competitive innovation.

Bluetooth could be the fresh start and the new market for this to happen. But there would have to be a strong standards-controlling body, and some basic and open APIs. The real problem is that when you sit down to start typing on your bluetooth connected keyboard, someone in the next room, or cubical, would see an available peripheral within useable distance. They could activate it and receive everything you type. Imagine the hilarity!

Scott

[Tycho Morgan]

You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.


Like I said these are mostly dreams that I know are really hard to get to the point of being practicle. Not having an extensive technical background, I can't really contribute to a discussion on how to make it practicle, but as a user, I can sure theroize.

Cheers,
Sam