We don’t have iPhones with Bluetooth 6 but—in truth, solely a pair second-tier Android telephones even declare to assist it thus far. However that’s not stopping the Bluetooth group, which is maintaining with its twice-a-year cadence and saying the Bluetooth 6.1 spec.
You’ll recall the Bluetooth 6 spec added a powerful new Channel Sounding functionality that may give it centimeter-accurate location and distance monitoring just like Extremely Wideband, along with some new options that may enhance latency and throughput.
The Bluetooth 6.1 replace is concentrated on a brand new function known as Randomized RPA (Resolvable Personal Deal with). This function permits for the timing of RPA tackle adjustments, which improves privateness. Your Bluetooth machine and people it connects to can change tackle at occasions that may’t be predicted, which makes it tougher for snooping units to trace your exercise or location. To enhance energy effectivity, this tackle change operation could be offloaded to the Bluetooth controller as an alternative of the machine’s CPU, which is able to save battery life.
We count on the primary premium telephones to assist Bluetooth 6 someday this fall, and that would very effectively embody the iPhone 17. It’s fairly potential these will assist these new Bluetooth 6.1 options as effectively, particularly given Apple’s enthusiasm for privateness and energy effectivity.