Huawei mobile phone transmits files to Apple mobile phone through direct connection of data cable?

Apple introduced a Bluetooth headset, as an accessory of iPhone, equipped with wireless charging function, which has a strange appearance, high price and poor sales.

Naturally, it is not called AirPod, but a straightforward name, Apple iPhone Bluetooth headset, which was released in 2007 to match the first generation iPhone.

Different from the impact of the original iPhone on the global communication market, this headset has no sense of existence, and its greatest value may be spread on Yi Bei as an Apple collection.

Apple headphones that are nothing like Apple headphones Source: Yi Bei

After the birth of the first Bluetooth headset in 2000, it has not been well received for more than ten years. Wearing a one-ear Bluetooth headset that flashes occasionally, it looks like a driver or an agent. Wired magazine also quipped in 2009 that "I may have watched too many robocops when I was a child and thought it was cool to decorate myself with electronic devices. What we want to emphasize is that it is stupid to walk around with a Bluetooth headset in one ear. There are no exceptions. "

Other problems include complicated pairing process, disconnection, frequent charging and so on.

Even Apple under Steve Jobs failed to make people accept Bluetooth headsets. Due to the failure of the first water test, it took Apple nearly ten years to launch the second Bluetooth headset AirPods, which sold 35 million pairs last year.

Now AirPods sells more than all other Bluetooth headsets combined every season. After the introduction of Bluetooth as a communication standard for 20 years, it is no longer something on everyone's mobile phone, but only a few decimal places are actually used.

However, the success of AirPods stems from Apple's customized chips and the integration with its own operating system, which just deviates from the original hope of Bluetooth technology. It is no longer the "bridge connecting all electronic devices" envisioned by the original creator.

Bluetooth was once regarded as the hope of a unified communication standard.

From the name, we can see the expectations of the scientific community for Bluetooth.

In the1990s, several large companies came up with the idea of creating a short-range wireless transmission scheme. Intel has a plan called Business-RF, Ericsson has a plan called MC-Link, and Nokia has a plan called Low Power RF. The three companies did almost the same thing, but Ericsson took the lead in completing this research.

Jaap Haartsen, an Ericsson engineer, has independently developed this project in the company since 1994. Two years later, like-minded engineers from Intel and Nokia were invited to meet.

Jim Kardach, an engineer in charge of similar projects at Intel, is a history lover. Because I wanted to cooperate with these Nordic companies, I bought Vikings to study Nordic history. Nordic history can't avoid Danish King Harald Blatand, who dyed his teeth blue because he loved blueberries and was nicknamed Bluetooth.

Jim Kardach proposed "Bluetooth" as the code name of this technology. "King Harald Blatand unified Scandinavia in the 10 century, just as we intend to connect PCs and mobile phones with short-range wireless communication technology." Jim Calda said this to the engineers present.

This code name has been approved by three companies. They see this technology as an opportunity for electronic devices to achieve universal interoperability-not only connecting mobile phones and computers, but also connecting products between different companies.

At that time, Ericsson thought that if the company's mobile phones and headphones could be interconnected, it might help boost the sales of these two products. Intel also believes that if mobile phones and computers can be connected, it may promote the growth of its personal computer sales.

In order to achieve this goal, they need to create a universal RF protocol for global electronic equipment manufacturers. But it is not enough to rely on only three companies. 1998, they invited representatives from IBM and Toshiba to sit down and discuss the global release of this technology.

1998 In May, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was established to control Bluetooth technology. The main agenda of the first meeting includes: * * formulating a standard and interoperable agreement; Determine that this technology must be provided free of charge; Make sure that the chip must be cheap and easy to install.

In addition, the conference also adopted the proposal of taking "Bluetooth" as the official name of the technology, and combined the Nordic ancient fonts of the letters H and B in Harald Bluetooth to create a Bluetooth logo.

Source: Fabrikbrands.

Unified standards have mobilized the enthusiasm of the whole industry. In 1998, more than 200 companies have announced their support for Bluetooth technology, although its version 1.0 has not yet been published. At that time, if you bought a mobile phone in China, there was an 80% chance that you would buy one of Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson. They were all participants in the Bluetooth standard. Microsoft and Intel, the two most important giants of PC in the field of software and hardware, are also involved.

1999, SIG released the 1.0 version of the Bluetooth technical standard.

In 2000, Ericsson launched the world's first GPR (General Packet Radio Service) mobile phone R520 with Bluetooth technology. At that time, several mainstream manufacturers such as Nokia in Finland, Psion in Britain and TDK in Japan also launched Bluetooth-equipped hardware products. In the same year, about 800,000 Bluetooth devices were shipped worldwide.

The world's first Bluetooth mobile phone source: Ericsson

After another year, the hype surrounding Bluetooth attracted more than 654.38 billion euros of venture capital. It took only three years from standardization to commercialization, and then to attract the primary market to join.

In 200 1 year, most of the investment in Bluetooth technology came from the five initial companies that set up SIG, but many small start-ups also invested hundreds of millions of euros, especially the designers and manufacturers of Bluetooth chipsets and base stations. Many of them are American companies, such as Silicon Wave, Conexant and Tality. There are also some in the Far East, such as Alpine Electric in Japan. There are also some European companies, such as BrightCom and Commil, and Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) in Britain.

20 18, Glen Collinson, co-founder of CSR, recalled that "Bluetooth may be one of the fastest spreading standards in the world."

In the field of radio, it often takes several years from making specifications to entering the market, but everything is accelerating under the impetus of market demand.

Low-cost Bluetooth chips make popularization easy. When the price of wireless chip exceeds $30, the cost of Bluecore chip produced by CSR company is only $5. This is in line with Ericsson's original $5 Bluetooth chip. Within a few years, China South Locomotive has occupied 60% of the global market share.

In 200 1 year, Philips Semiconductor Company of the Netherlands, Infineon Company of Germany, Texas Instruments Company of the United States, and National Semiconductor Company of the United States also had the ability to manufacture Bluetooth chips. At that time, PC cards were also regarded as an important field. In the same year, at least 20 companies launched products, including 3Com and Motorola.

Put forward various ideas. A Danish company named BlueTags has developed Bluetooth-enabled luggage tags and hotel keys. Red-M in Britain has developed a system that allows doctors to balance hospital accounts according to patients' health insurance. ZebraPass in the United States developed a wireless ticketing system for stadiums based on Bluetooth, which was also supported by Nokia.

At that time, people thought that in this way, devices could interact with any other devices nearby through wireless links. Most market analysts are also optimistic about this industry. Frost&Sullivan estimates that the shipment of Bluetooth products will increase from 1 1 10,000 in 2006 to about 600 million in 2006, equivalent to 788 million euros in revenue.

Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner, said in 200 1 that high expectations may damage Bluetooth, saying that "Bluetooth has passed the peak of expectations."

Even Jaap Haartsen himself began to worry that people's expectations for Bluetooth were too high.

"People are enthusiastic about the potential and possibilities of Bluetooth, but there are also many expectations that cannot be realized in a short time." Jaap Haartsen said, "Investment in new things may not pay off for a long time. With the economic recession, many investments are only the first step in a long journey. "

Twenty years later, Bluetooth has only realized a small part of the original idea.

Twenty years later, Bluetooth is no longer a function that a mobile phone manufacturer needs to emphasize when launching products, but a standard for almost all mobile phones. Like Wi-Fi, it is formulated as a standard for mobile phones-these two technologies are usually packaged directly by the same manufacturer and provided on mobile phones. You may not support Bluetooth today, unless you buy an old man machine.

Bluetooth standard has undergone a complex change from 1.0 to 5.0, but it has not become an indispensable communication standard, and it is mainly used to connect headphones, speakers, car stereos, mice and keyboards.

It was a sign a long time ago.

From June, 5438 to February, 2000, 3Com, a member of SIG Alliance, gave a demonstration at the Bluetooth conference held in Silicon Valley. Two laptops equipped with Bluetooth function are used for communication, but they have not been connected for a long time. A year later, at the CeBit conference in Hanover, the German technology company Lesswire set up more than 100 Bluetooth base stations (the largest Bluetooth network in the world at that time), inviting participants to experience wireless transmission, but the network was always unavailable, and the staff worked hard for more than ten minutes to connect.

Lesswire's project manager blamed the network congestion for a while, and then blamed the visitor's equipment for not installing the necessary software. After the meeting, reporters in the information age wrote that the enthusiasm around Bluetooth is on the rise. "What they are most afraid of now is that the original developers of Bluetooth are right-Bluetooth is just a cable replacement tool suitable for information transmission and contact synchronization."

The reality is not as good as the "alternative data line" of that year. Bluetooth just replaced the audio cable, mouse cable and keyboard cable. Even the information transmission between the mobile phone and the computer is basically done directly through the Internet service-any large file still uses the data cable or Wi-Fi.

Changes of Bluetooth technology version 1.0-5.0

1999

Version 1.0 released.

Use the 2.4GHz band. Many manufacturers point out that their products are incompatible with each other. Audio signal compression transmission, poor sound quality. Anonymity cannot be achieved at the protocol level, and there is a danger of leaking data.

200 1 year

Version 1. 1 released.

It is officially listed in IEEE 802. 15. 1 standard, and the transmission rate is 0.7Mbps. However, due to its early design, it is easily interfered by the same frequency products, which affects the communication quality.

In 2003

Version 1.2 released.

Improve anonymity to protect users from identity sniffing attacks and tracking, backward compatible with 1. 1 version.

In 2004

Version 2.0 is released.

Enhanced data rate (EDR) is introduced to realize faster data transmission. The nominal rate of EDR is 3 Mbit/s, and the actual data transmission rate is 2. 1 Mbit/s, which supports duplex mode and can transmit documents/high-quality pictures while carrying out voice communication. At the same time, EDR technology can reduce power consumption by reducing the working debt cycle.

In 2007

Version 2. 1 released.

The transmission time interval of mutual confirmation signals between devices is extended from the old version of 0. 1 s to about 0.5 seconds, which reduces the workload of Bluetooth chips. The pairing experience of Bluetooth devices is improved, and the use and safety intensity are improved.

In 2009

Version 3.0 is released.

An optional technology was added, with high speed. Theoretically, the transmission rate was as high as 24 Mbit/s, which was 8 times that of Bluetooth 2.0. At that time, the maximum transmission rate of Wi-Fi was 250 Mbit/s.. EPC enhanced power control technology is introduced, supplemented by 802. 1 1 to reduce the actual idle power consumption.

20 10 year

Version 4.0 is released.

Is the first Bluetooth integration protocol specification so far, which integrates three specifications. One of the most important changes is the low power function of BLE (Bluetooth low power), which reduces the power consumption by 90% compared with the old version.

20 16

Version 5.0 is released.

In the low power consumption mode, it has faster and farther transmission ability, the transmission rate is twice that of Bluetooth 4.2 (the upper limit of the rate is 2Mbps), the effective transmission distance is four times that of Bluetooth 4.2 (theoretically up to 300 meters), and the data packet capacity is eight times that of Bluetooth 4.2. Apple HomePod, iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X have started to use this standard.

Even in the field of accessories, Bluetooth has failed to unify standards.

When you buy smart home products, such as light bulbs and purifiers, whether it is expensive Philips or cheap millet, it is easy to meet the Zigbee standard. Its Chinese translation is called purple bee, which is a wireless network protocol with low speed and short distance transmission, and is mostly used in the fields of home automation control and industrial telemetry and remote control.

When you use professional fitness equipment and sports peripherals, you will come into contact with the ant wireless network. This standard is basically used not only in the sensor that records the frequency of the rider's stepping in the Tour de France, but also in the common heart rate zone when running in the gym. More exist in health, sports, medical care and other fields.

Advanced gaming mouse brands such as Logitech and Razer will also have their own unique communication standards. Logitech uses its proprietary 2.4GHz wireless communication format, which can create faster response speed and accuracy than Bluetooth.

It is always a nightmare to design a standard to make hundreds of hardware companies compatible with each other.

The most direct problem with Bluetooth for many years is that it is too difficult to use. Nokia and Ericsson began to support Bluetooth file transfer on their mobile phones more than ten years ago, which was once considered as a more efficient communication method, which was very suitable for the era when the traffic of operators was expensive and MMS was one yuan.

The premise of this service is that Bluetooth should be compatible with different mobile phones (even PCs), as well as different operating systems and different software on mobile phones. Coordinating many hardware manufacturers to support each other is a nightmare.

For example, if you use Nokia's Symbian mobile phone to send files, the files will appear on other Symbian mobile phones in the form of short messages. However, if the other party uses Microsoft or Palm mobile phones, or even Symbian mobile phones from other manufacturers, the transmission is basically difficult to achieve.

This is completely different from sending WeChat pictures on Wi-Fi or 4G networks. The latter is that no matter what brand, system and mobile phone access the Internet through base stations or Wi-Fi hotspots, and then transmit information-the two mobile phones are not directly connected, and it doesn't matter what system and hardware they use.

So soon, even the people in the Bluetooth camp lost confidence in this. Dr Michael Foley, a wireless expert from Microsoft, said in 200 1: "The victory of interoperability between every device and every application will never come."

Chris Kozup, an international data analyst at IDC, is also pessimistic: "SIG has so many member companies that everyone will look at this situation from a slightly different perspective, and the result is a mess."

It turns out that it is. Although SIG has established standards for Bluetooth to ensure its interoperability, the specific implementation is carried out by many different Bluetooth Certification Committees (BQB) around the world. This gives manufacturers "free play space".

Gerhard Heider, general manager of 200 1 Philips Semiconductor NV connection product line, admitted that in order to configure new functions for Bluetooth according to brand requirements, some practices of BQB were beyond the scope of benchmark testing.

Reducing these problems requires more cost. To get the full support of Bluetooth SIG, enterprises with annual income below $ 1 100 million have to pay an annual membership fee of $7,500 and an exhibition fee of $4,000 (the box is marked with Bluetooth support), which does not include other recognizable certifications, at least several thousand dollars. As a result, many supporting products have not done all the necessary certification.

In contrast, the ANT+ standard fee for fitness equipment is only 80 cents per piece, which is why you can buy dozens of riding sensors.

Therefore, the problem of adaptation has not been solved so far, even if you just connect headphones and keyboards with Bluetooth again and again, there are all kinds of troubles. In the hacker news community where engineers and technical enthusiasts haunt, 20 16, someone asked: Why is Bluetooth still so rubbish after so many years? In the comment area, users shared stories about their struggle with Bluetooth devices, and engineers shared their exposure to poor software and chaotic standards and certifications.

More importantly, hardware companies always imagine the functions that ghosts are willing to use, which has been proved time and again.

The question of Bluetooth is not only whether it can be used, but also what it can be used for. At that time, most application development around Bluetooth had come to an end, and many millennials had never used Bluetooth-based software.

In the software era, all communication technologies dominated by hardware manufacturers have had similar problems.

The most successful communication technology today is undoubtedly the cellular data network on mobile phones-3G, 4G. Although they have spread to most people's smartphones, people don't even want 3G in those days when operators decide what the mobile Internet looks like.

Operators have established a complete set of Internet services in the 2G era. In fact, many Internet services that we often use today were provided by operators at that time.

Social pictures have MMS, information has mobile phone newspaper, mobile payment has direct dial phone bill (although it can only be used to buy games and ringtones), mailboxes have BIS and BES, browsers have WAP pages, and app stores have mobile phone treasure boxes. Compared with today's internet service, they have everything, but no one wants to use it.

To sum up, it works, but it doesn't work well. This is why all mobile phone companies at that time had to listen to operators and adjust their mobile phone design and software according to their own needs, even the largest Nokia was no exception.

After the arrival of 3G, the thinking of operators has not surpassed the level of the 2G era. Although operators have invested a lot of money in bidding for licenses, consumers still have no incentive to use 3G. In this way, seven years after the 3G network upgrade, there was no splash at all. By 2006, the whole industry was rethinking whether the capital had flowed to Hua Cuo.

Compared with 2G, the biggest feature of 3G is to improve the data download speed, provided that there must be good software and content in the mobile phone to stimulate users to download. Operators didn't do this, but Google and Apple did.

In 2008, with the arrival of iPhone 3G, mobile phone users can select and download their own applications through non-carrier channels for the first time. This is a complete experience-developers develop applications, users pay for downloads, and Apple and developers are divided into three parts. There is no need to ask the operator's opinion in this process.

After the iPhone 3G, Nokia Symbian Ovi Store (later renamed Nokia Store), Microsoft's Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry's App World appeared one after another.

But the most successful ones are Android's Google Play and iPhone App Store. With the help of the operating systems and software services of these two companies, consumers have found the significance of using high-speed networks, and Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G have naturally developed.

In this story, you will find that operators and hardware manufacturers once had enough time and money to master the right to speak of new communication standards, but they didn't.

NFC near field communication technology, which was originally designed to solve the payment function on mobile phones, has not been popularized so far. On the contrary, it has become the habit of most people in China to look at the code scanning function with less technical content.

Bluetooth technology, which was born by Nokia and Ericsson, is also imagined by hardware manufacturers. So far, no good products have been created, and consumers have not found the meaning of use.

Bluetooth has been used better in the past two years, because decision makers have positioned it as a simple accessory connection technology.

20 10 apple iPhone 4 is one of the earliest mobile phones adopting BLE low-power bluetooth technology, and has gradually become the standard of the mobile phone industry. Fragmented environment is better.

This also caught up with the reshuffle of the mobile phone industry. Apple and Google, the new industry controllers, have changed their positioning of Bluetooth from a universal communication standard to just using it to connect accessories.

IPhone never supports Bluetooth to transfer files to other devices. Although Android is more open, Google's native system does not provide related functions. However, not many people complain. Because the traffic is cheap enough, the Wi-Fi transmission speed is faster, and the social network is perfect, there is no reason to use Bluetooth to transmit files.

In the scene of connecting accessories, in order to make the bad experience of Bluetooth tolerable, manufacturers began to add their own chips.

AirPods is a good example. Apple's homemade W 1 chip makes AirPods above all other Bluetooth headsets, making the whole Bluetooth headset market a second-rate product except AirPods. Samsung doesn't use its own chip, but its chip partner Broadcom must also develop its own chip to ensure the sound synchronization between the two earplugs-Bluetooth alone is not enough.

Ironically, although phenomenal products such as AirPods finally appeared on the Bluetooth platform, it violated the original intention of the technology.

You can use the combination of ordinary Bluetooth headset and iPhone, or you can use AirPods as ordinary Bluetooth headset with Android phones or even game consoles, but the combination of iPhone+AirPods can provide all functions and bring the best experience. The best products are not "products that can connect everything" originally conceived by Bluetooth creators, but products in a closed ecology.

Under the leadership of Apple, "you can connect, but don't connect everything" has become the attitude of big companies towards Bluetooth. All they need is mutual recognition of their internal products, and they hope to see this gap as a barrier to leaving consumers.

For example, Google's Pixel Buds. You can listen to music by connecting other playback devices, but you can only use Google Assistant and real-time translation when you are connected to a Pixel phone. When used with iPhone, Pixel Buds is just an "ordinary Bluetooth headset".

As for Nintendo's popular Switch game console, it has a built-in Bluetooth connection handle, but it can't connect a Bluetooth headset.

Now there is another technology dominated by hardware companies. Will there be different results?

5G is on its way. From operators to chip companies, from mobile phone manufacturers to car companies, the mood is warm. Just like Bluetooth, it has attracted the pursuit of global enterprises.

The whole world is investing in 5G, and the three major operators in China may invest 40 billion RMB around 5G this year. In 20 18, Huawei invested 5 billion yuan in 5G R&D, got 25 base station construction orders, and shipped more than 10000 5G base stations. Mainstream smartphone manufacturers, including Samsung, OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi, have announced the timetable for the launch of 5G mobile phones, and 5G will be the core selling point of new mobile phones in 20 19.

But what can consumers get about 5G?

The 3G era occurred after the rise of social networks, and before 4G, video websites became popular. I don't know what 5G is for, and the technology giants in China and the United States have not given a convincing answer.

5G is faster than 4G, which not only makes downloading faster, but also shortens the corresponding time. According to the application scenarios published by GSMA Association, 4G can't be satisfied, and there are four technologies that need 5G: autonomous driving, augmented reality, virtual reality and tactile Internet.

AR augmented reality and VR virtual reality are not used now, and the content and hardware level can't meet the requirements of consumers. The internet is the last problem they need to worry about. For autonomous driving, what is more important is obviously the computing power of the car itself.

As for the tactile internet with a strange name. In March this year, PLA General Hospital, China Mobile and Huawei cooperated in a 5G remote human body surgery. Doctors in Beijing operate brain pacemakers through the 5G network and operate on patients with Parkinson's disease in Hainan Hospital.

This seems to be a very forward-looking experiment, but there are many preconditions: there is no reliable Wi-Fi network; There are complex surgical robots on the other side; The patient cannot move; The 5G signal is completely stable. ...

A great idea, but it is based on many assumptions. Just like Bluetooth in those days. When you put all the assumptions into reality, it's not so easy to realize.

The faster speed and shorter delay of 5G must be the trend. But when and how to influence the daily experience is another question.

But the answer is unlikely to come from communication operators or mobile phone companies who can only think of the story of "the next movie in a few seconds".

Title source: Suganthon Unsplash, GMax Studio on Unplash