Will the new iPhone use Bluetooth 4.0?

More and more rumors about the still-to-be-officially-announced new model in the iPhone family. After long debates regarding the supposed features of the new phone, with sources confirming or denying information, now we got some palpable indication of at least one capability.

A few days ago, Apple launched the new Macbook Air and Mac Mini, both of whom use Bluetooth 4.0 instead of the old 2.1 which has been used up to now.While looking to only use state-of-the-art technology in their products, Apple has chosen to bypass using Bluetooth 3.0 and is now blasting past their competition by using this new version and thus becoming the first manufacturer to launch a Bluetooth 4.0 capable device.

The main difference between the third and fourth generation is that the new one is able to adapt its power use, increasing or decreasing it to suit the instant need. This new technology is called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and even at maximum power, still uses only about half the power needed by Bluetooth 3.0 devices, while using only a hundredth when idling.

Apart from that, Bluetooth 4.0 is also capable of using an increased active area, somewhere around 200 m and it has a 6ms latency, as supposed to the 100ms capability of the current third generation.

Not to be overlooked is also the fact that the equipment needed for Bluetooth 4.0 is a lot smaller. Couple that with the low power usage mentioned above and you get two major pluses Apple decides to use it for the new iPhone or any other mobile device i.e. iPad or iPod.