Bluetooth wars

We are currently caught smack in the middle of a battle between BMW and Nokia over Bluetooth compatibility. Now I don’t know what your understanding of Bluetooth is but mine was that it was to be the messiah of all connectivity. Unfortunately, big business got hold of it and managed to crucify it, before it became actually useful. As revealed a couple of weeks ago, BMW made a good case for their defence, when I happened to mention to them that I was thinking of taking on Nokia, I got some excellent words of encouragement from them:-

“I think this suggestion is wonderful. Do you have some powerful medicine to apply to Nokia? We have tried doing war dances round the car park, to little avail. Also, we can say that the Nokia N series is absolutely fine, as long as you do not wish to make outgoing calls!”

“Have you made Nokia aware of your stance? After all, look at the lengths Lloyds TSB went to in order to stop those dreadful Halifax advertisements!”

Unfortunately, I don’t currently have the funds to buy Nokia out and teach them a proper lesson but I did indeed make them aware and received the following reply :-

“I regret to hear about the issue which you are currently experiencing between your Nokia N95 and BMW Bluetooth. I understand your frustration due to this matter; nevertheless, I appreciate your understanding that I would only be able to ensure the functionality of our Nokia phones and car kit if the car kit is a product of Nokia. However, I would not be able to confirm compatibility with third party hardware. As the BMW car kit is not manufactured by Nokia, I suggest that you speak to your BMW dealership to find out if Nokia phones are fully compatible with your car kit.”

They made the mistake of sending me a follow-up customer satisfaction survey, so at least I got to underline my frustration. I suspect I won't be on their Christmas card list this year: Oh, well, back to square one. I decided to explore a different route and checked the BMW position on the upgraded Iphone 3G, the original version is of course fully supported :-

“Your observation regarding the lack of display of the Apple 3G on our matrix is correct. We are still eagerly awaiting the (hopefully) unanimous decision by our colleagues in Munich that the Apple iPhone 3G will offer good compatibility. A further factor of relevance is that the Apple is the only handset producer to work together with BMW so this is a positive in a world full of Bluetooth negatives”.

So it looks like I shall be hanging on to my old N95,for a while yet. This is a bit of a pain as it has lost the ability to charge its own battery. This is not good news for Mrs B as I keep having to "pimp" her phone. It’s very strange - although the battery is a completely different size and won’t actually run Mrs B’s phone, it quite happily charges when placed in her handset?

Breaking news
Please note the car naming lines have now closed, the votes have been cast and the results verified. Any entries made from now on will not count but you may be charged. (Oh god, I’m sorry, Strictly,is back and as Mrs B is going to be glued to the goggle box for the next few months I have to start getting into character, in order to survive the onslaught). The new car name is………..

Big drum roll….
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Dancing girls…..
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Big trumpet Fanfare….
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Zzzzzzzzzz, Oh sorry I must have drifted off in all the excitement....
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Dancing bears ……
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Hang on in there it is coming, even if I am over-egging it a bit…..
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The name is.......“ElleGee”

(“Woo hoo……” said Mrs B, clearly with little real enthusiasm)

The name is taken from LG, the first two letters of the number plate which has been taken to one side, mugged and given a good working over with a special BlackLOG style spelling. It also stands for “Lazy Git”. Since ElleGee is only a 1.8L (look, I was really pushing the upper reaches of my Company Car Scheme for my grade, the air was getting pretty thin up there I can tell you. There was certainly no room for more power, which is probably just as well for my driving licence’s sake), you really need to push ElleGee to get performance - whip and spurs optional - but when you do it is rewarding. Probably more importantly than the former part of this paragraph, using the first two letters of the number plate makes it hard even for me to forget the name. Now all I have to do is try and make it stick, despite Mrs Bs evident "enthusiasm"……