Wireless isn't just for Internet and computer-to-computer connectivity ”it can also be used to move data between your Mac and your peripherals. This is where Bluetooth comes in. Bluetooth is a short-range, relatively low-speed wireless technology with an operating range of approximately 30 feet (10 meters ) and a maximum transmission rate of only 1 Mbps. If you think of Wi-Fi as Ethernet without wires, the comparable way to think of Bluetooth is USB without wires (though we're talking about the slower USB 1.0 standard used in most peripherals; USB 2.0 is quite zippy). For instance, hooking up a PDA used to require a USB-attached cradle, but you can now transfer data wirelessly between your Mac and Palm via Bluetooth. A word of advice: the Bluetooth technology and its implementation on the Macintosh is a work in progress. Early press about Bluetooth raved about how it could be used to hook up printers, keyboards, and mice. Unfortunately, Apple's Bluetooth support is tweaky at best; we've found that Bluetooth tends to be flaky, and sometimes it just fails to work at all.
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