Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Mac OS X Panther 10.3.4: Update to Address Book: Bluetooth caller ID now useful!

From the article:


Windows for incoming phone calls and SMS messages for a paired Bluetooth phone now appear in the foreground.


Back months ago, I had already noticed I could tell address book to connect to my Sony Ericsson t610 via bluetooth, and a caller-id window with options would show-up whenever I'd receive a call. What was however frustrating was that it would stay in the background if you were working in some other application. Looks like this update fixed this issue.

Among a few nifty things, you can click the "answer" button, and carry a conversation thru your computer's microphone and speakers: your mac relays the audio via the bluetooth connection. [Correction: ] I was mistaken, you can't actually carry a conversation, i thought I was doing it from the laptop, but it was just my t610 picking-up the sound of my voice while i was assuming my speakers were low. Now i'm all disappointed. snifflez.

I tried clicking "add card" when the incoming call's number wasn't in my address book, but it did not pre-populate the phone number anywhere. I'm thinking some usability enhancements would be most welcome here.

The SMS reply feature is pretty cool, I actually tried it and it worked.

If you click "Log Call" and the number exists in your address book, it will add a note in the caller's record indicating at what time they called.

There even was a "send to voicemail" button.

I wish the menu would show the person's picture from Address Book.

I'm thinking the buttons that show-up may depend on which capabilities are present on your bluetooth phone and which subset of those capabilities are properly exposed to the bluetooth interface.

Here's more coverage about this: from boingboing.net

If you are interested in these types of bluetooth phone <-> mac interactions, you might consider checking out Romeo. It's still rough around the edges and in beta, but quite fun to play with!

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