Other than BT earphones to Nokia mobiles, I have gotten BT to successfully "pair" exactly once.

BT keyboards, mice, GPS units, all suck, even if the devices are made by the same manufacturer. For me, BT is a red flag NOT to buy something.

Love my cordless headphones hooked up to my mobile phone for handsfree and walkman for the tunes but can't see much point in the technology - if both devices have wifi than I'd use them to transfer a file - why would I send it over bluetooth if I know it'll take forever and there's a quicker way?

Or is this another one of those technological improvements to aid thick people?

Apart from wireless headphones I've never really seen the point of bluetooth in a phone that's WiFi enabled!

Sure you can transfer files / use it as a modem however it would be far simpler for users if the mobile phone companies would simply setup their products to offer decent services over WiFi instead of BT.

Why not use Samba over Wifi to transfer files, it would remove the need for any stupid software and give user's a much more familiar experiance than BT especially if used with a zeroconfig daemon such as Avahi. It's the same for mobile internet, why not simply allow the phone to be used as an ethernet modem/router over WiFi, sure probably only the smart phones would be able to do this at the moment but it's easy enough to do this on linux with very low resources so why not phones!

Bluetooth is just another example of technological overkill anyway. I still haven't figured out why you would need to replace something as simple and reliable as a headphone cord with a complicated and expensive digital radio interface.

Paris icon 'cause she likes fancy/pointless status symbols

"Or is this another one of those technological improvements to aid thick people?"

Probably... It's something that will appear primarily in mobile devices, which seem to be designed exactly for super thick people these days.

I use BT to transfer files (usually pics) easily from my phone to my laptop. I don't have to worry about a cable, and the laptop and phone, once they were paired the first time, simply detect each other and off they go. It's the easiest way IMO. Never tried the wifi connection tho.

I also use it for the headphones with my laptop, and also with my phone. Works well for me.

At home I have 3 phones, two PCs and a USB bluetook dongle I got given at a conference.

Plus a couple of headsets that got bundled with the phones.

None of these has ever been used - ever. I dont even know if they work.

Haveing seen friends cursing an swaering at thier blue tooth headsets when they drop connections in hte middle of a phone call I have not even bothered to try thenm out.

So thats at least 8 unused bluetooth chips in one household with a 100% "never used" status.

Problem with your idea there is you have said Samba wouldn't need any software and then say Avahi would do for zero config. Thats another piece of software surely.

Thing with Bluetooth, its on every phone, everyone knows about it and software and devices are readily avaliable.

Never had any problem on Apple machines since the 12" Powerbook 867.

Had bluetooth mice, keyboards, headsets, headphones, printers all work like a charm.

Using iSync I have synced many mobile phones over bluetooth, used bluetooth to control itunes as a remote control.

Most phones have bluetooth for the headsets, which you have to wear if driving and using a mobile.

IMHO its a great, if underused technology that only a few companies like Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Apple have fully utilized.

Avahi runs on the server (The phone in this case) to announce the service ala bonjour. It wouldn't really be needed as Samba can use WINS but it would make it easier for OSX users etc.

When I said software I mean on the client machine (ie the computer), however I fail to see why Nokia couldn't provide a Samba client as well so you could browse your computer's file shares.

I really don't see the point in alot of this software provided by manufacturers, why bother when you could use simple, well supported standards and then just use the support built into the OS that the user is clearly familiar with.

Bluetooth, is a very important technology, but it's used for cell phones and smart devices for send/receive small documents and archives, i think bluetooth is less important of IEEE 802.11 Technology because wire-less is used in LAN's for conect notebooks and other devices in enterprises, and this technology can be used further distance than bluetooth and wire-less is more faster than Bluetooth too.