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iPhone 5 AirPlay Direct feature & $50 price rise

Everyone knows that the big day when Apple unveils their next iOS smartphone will soon be upon us, and the closer we come to the big day, more rumours on the iPhone 5 surface. Recently it was rumoured that the iPhone 5 would not sport NFC functionality; however today another rumoured feature, AirPlay Direct, could make up for the lack of NFC.

According to an article over on the Examiner, by way of Computer World, AirPlay Direct is an incremental improvement to AirPlay for the iPhone 5, that will allow the new iOS smartphone to stream audio without a WiFi connection, opting to use Bluetooth instead.

According to the article, the AirPlay Direct feature rumoured to be on the iPhone 5 doesn’t really sound that great until you take into consideration that Apple is looking at getting rid of all cables for their devices, and would enable accessory makers to deliver home HiFi equipment and wireless speaker systems with the need of a WiFi chip, and would enable a seamless connection to the users iOS device.

Having said that, of course using Bluetooth to stream audio isn’t actually a new idea, but maybe Apple’s AirPlay Direct will make Bluetooth audio streaming from a user’s device to another device more reliable.

As for how much the iPhone 5 will hit the pocket for, well, as you know, the 16GB iPhone 4S price tag is 199-bucks, the 32GB is 299-buck and the 64GB is 399, and rumour has it that when it comes to the iPhone 5, Apple may possibly up that price tag by 50-bucks, although of course none of this has been confirmed.

So there you have it, the latest rumours about iPhone 5 features, but would AirPlay Direct be a feature that draws customers to the new iPhone, or would they prefer to have had that NFC functionality? In any case, no matter the rumours, or whatever the iPhone 5 looks like or brings to the game, the new IOS smartphone is certain to be a hit in the mobile space.

The 21st of September is the expected date for the release of the iPhone 5, so how many of our readers will be pre-ordering the handset, or will you be lining up outside your local Apple store on the big day, and if the iPhone 5 is 50-bucks extra will you still purchase the device?

Comments

2 thoughts on “iPhone 5 AirPlay Direct feature & $50 price rise”

  1. Maury Markowitz says:

    I suspect that this system does not use BT for the actual transfer, but something known as “Bluetooth high speed”. BTHS uses normal BT pairing to set up a low-speed link, then uses that link to exchange keys. Those keys are then used to set up a conventional Wi-Fi link between the two devices, normally on 5 GHz so it’s on a different band than most existing routers. From that point on, Wi-Fi is used for all data.

    I suspect this for two reasons. One is that Intel is suddenly announcing a competing standard, and the timing seems odd. The other is that the iPhone 5 supports 5 GHz bands, right in time for AirPlay Direct.

    Intel’s competition for this is “Wi-Fi Direct”. This sets up the pairing using Wi-Fi Direct, that push-button you see on some routers. I’ve heard there are ways to use NFC for this, which makes it even more BTHS-like.

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