My Bluetooth Bungle

Wires suck. You know it, your mom knows it; even your dog knows it. Nobody likes to be tethered down. As far as I know, no creature on Earth was born with cabling. It's just not natural.Yet "experts" hailing from every industry swear that being connected, with wires, is the best way to keep in touch with the world. They say that wires are the only reliable way to transmit and receive data. These "learned" people proclaim that this is the price we pay for living in the "Electronic Age."Or so we have been led to believe.Last February, Apple released the 32 GB iPod Touch. Considering that my second generation iPod died the year before and my five hour round trip commute started to get to me, I decided to buy this new device.I loved this device. In fact I still love it. I am using it now to write this blog entry. But I hated the Apple earphones it came with. They had decent sound reproduction but the cord was annoying, they did not fit my ears very well, and the rubber gasket that kept them in my ears was disintegrating. So I started looking for a wireless headphone system. I started with Bluetooth.Bluetooth is a wireless standard that allows secure short-range connections to multiple gadgets. I have had success with Bluetooth in my personal computing experience. I was confident that Bluetooth would be my audio angel; my digital deliverer. So I received an iPod Bluetooth transmitter for Christmas and purchased a Bluetooth stereo headset. Now I could listen to music wirelessly. And for a time, it was good.The problem with getting one's hopes up is that they inevitably fall.My hopes for a Bluetooth solution took a damn nose dive after a day of using the system. The headset did not fit right and sound reproduction was sub-par. But the worst aspect of the system was battery life. The Bluetooth transmitter reduced my iPod's battery life by 60%. 6-0-percent. The iPod did not even last two days. This was clearly unacceptable.So I returned the transmitter and the headset in the following week, and donned the Apple earphones once again. There will be a day where wireless music will be ubiquitous; it will be great and it will be easy. But that day is not today.