Guys, do I miss some setting? I’ve tested an iPhone 3G with OS3.0 without any kind of a jailbreak – and, yes, even after a reset, without starting anything else but the iPod app. The previous / next buttons (to move to the previous / next song) on none (!) of my six (!) A2DP headphones (Motorola HT820 (model D), Gear4 BluPhones , Cellink BTST-9000-D, Plantronics Pulsar 590, Plantronics Voyager 855 and Altec (Plantronics) 903 / 906) worked and, in addition, on the Cellink BTST-9000-D, Plantronics 855, not even the pause/resume button. Does it work for any of you?
That is normal behavior. 3.0 supports A2DP, but not AVRCP. However, volume and play/pause should work on all headsets, as those controls are part of the A2DP protocol. You're confusing A2DP with AVRCP. The A2DP protocol doesn't contain any specifications for controlling previous/next, that's part of the AVRCP protocol.
Let me disagree - play/pause is part of AVRCP, not A2DP (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVRCP#Audio.2FVideo_Remote_Control_Profile_.28AVRCP.29 ). That is, Apple implemented only the basics of AVRCP, without paying attention to previous / next. Well, at least pause / play is more than nothing.
That seems to be true. I was relying too much on the information in a headset roundup article. The Wikipedia article is not 100 % clear on whether AVRCP 1.0 includes skip functionality. If it does not, then it would seem that Apple implemented AVRCP 1.0 instead of a more recent version. I wonder why. EDIT: I too am disappointed by this. This doesn't make bluetooth stereo headsets quite the replacer for regular headsets that I had originally hoped it to be. Maybe in a future update.
Play pause works for me but sometimes i get intermittent connection with bluetooth w/o the phone moving at all What would the iPhone be doing that makes the bluetooth cut in and out sometimes? It usually happens for about 10-30 seconds going in and out every few seconds and then goes away (then comes back after 5-20 minutes).
This seems to be headphone model-specific. I'll be able to tell you more after some more testing on which models are particularly affected by this.
This is also headphone model-specific when it comes to A2DP stability. In my previous A2DP tests with Windows Mobile /BlackBerry / Symbian S60, I've done quite a lot of in-the-street tests where quick fading and refractioning also come into the picture. Some headphones had no problems because of this quick fading; some models (e.g., Gear4 Bluphones) have turned out to be completely useless for on-street usage because of the major fading sensitiveness.
Well, still pause / resume is definitely more than nothing. Let me point out that Nokia’s S60 operating system doesn’t support pausing/resuming in a lot of contemporary, popular stereo headphones like those of Plantronics (except for their latest models). In addition, you’ll use pause / resume most of the time and not previous / next. (Just make sure you create playlists that don’t contain songs you don’t want to listen to; then, you won’t need “skip to the next song” to quickly step over unwanted songs.)