Decrippling a Blackberry 7100t?

March 15, 2005 9:05 AM

I just upgraded to a Blackberry 7100t, and in my (crappy!) research totally missed the fact that the Bluetooth is crippled.

So does anyone know if anybody has made any progress at getting OBEX to work on the Blackberry? I really hate the idea of paying TMobile just to email pics over to it.

And it would make it far, far easier to iSynch contacts, etc with my PowerBook. If it makes any difference, I purchased the phone in the UK but I understand folks in the US be complaining also.

Thanks much!

posted by Mutant to Technology (2 answers total)

"Crippled" implies that there's some functionality possible with the hardware that the manufacturer has switched off. But that's not the case with the Blackberry. It never had that ability to begin with. A big part of the Blackberry's success is due to its popularity with government agencies -- who won't buy a device that does insecure wireless data transfer. So to appease these clients, RIM's Bluetooth chips simply omit the part that would allow anyone to produce software to move data over Bluetooth.
posted by jjg at 9:39 AM on March 15, 2005

Best answer: Any Bluetooth device with storage yet without OBEX is crippled by definition, since a fundamental function is missing from the firmware. RIM made a bad call on omitting OBEX from the firmware, although they do support SyncML which will presumably allow Macintosh compatibility with the upcoming synchronization system in OSX "Tiger," though that is no solution for file transfer.

In any case, according to a recent MacObserver article, PocketMac is in development with a workaround to the current crippled firmware.

RIM, by the way, doesn't make Bluetooth chips. Those are pretty much commodity parts these days.
posted by majick at 12:56 PM on March 15, 2005