I got a call from a friend one late Friday evening. “I’m calling you from my MacBook Pro!” he shouted and seemed a little too excited for his own good. He then went on to tell me about this awesome app BluePhoneElite, and how it now supports the iPhone. I was a little too sleepy to react the way I should have, but deep down I was jumping about like a puppy dog anticipating a juicy bone.
Testing it out
The very next day I summoned the MacBook for the task (the iMac was mysteriously missing its bluetooth adapter). The bluetooth hookup with an iPhone is a little weird and non-standard, as you have to generate a pin on the iPhone and then enter it in the Mac. Anyway, 5 minutes later, I was in the application, and ready to make calls.
There’s no user interface for the application, only a dock icon as all the controls are hidden in under the menubar. File ยป New Call and it brought up a little dialog box. BluePhoneElite supports AddressBook access on the iPhone so all I needed to do was enter the name of my contact and it showed up. Note that it only autocompletes if you start typing with the first name. Entering anything other than the first name will produce no results.
The call went through effortlessly, and both ends could hear and speak without any problems. With the iPhone still connected to the MacBook, I called it from another phone. The Mac began flashing with a Answer/Decline button. Again, no problems. You can even switch audio sources while on a call, so if you want to pick up your iPhone midway you can just change the audio source. I should note that prior to using the white MacBook, I tried BPE on an Unibody MacBook and there was a problem with the connection as both parties could not speak or hear anything. Couldn’t get it to work no matter how hard I tried.
More Features
When it comes to the iPhone, BluePhoneElite is crippled in its feature set. All it supports is making and receiving calls, AddressBook access (read-only), and monitoring battery and network strength. You can’t send and receive SMS, no data-time sync, Call logs, or Ring Profiles.
Still, is BluePhoneElite worth the $25 for a license for an iPhone user? I’m pretty sure it is. The core functionality is very well executed, which by itself is worth the price. It avoids the radiation scares of using a phone to your head, and you don’t have to worry about missing a call because of the iPhone’s tiny speaker. It would be nice to be able to send and receive SMS messages from the Mac, but this is good enough for now.
I wouldn’t advice this app for those contantly on the move as the MacBook’s speakers are not loud enough to be heard properly, and having the iPhone transmit over the network and bluetooth is definitely going to drain that battery fast. A 14 day trial awaits.
