Bluetooth 5 has been confirmed and will be released in late-2016/early-2017, but when will it come to your smartphone? Let us reveal all.
We spoke to an industry expert to find out when Bluetooth 5 will start featuring on mainstream devices – and it looks like we’ll be waiting until 2018 and handsets like the iPhone 8S/9 and Galaxy S9 to enjoy the new standard.
At least, that’s what Philip McAleese, CEO and co-founder at award-winning cycle tech company SeeSense, disclosed to us when we spoke to him at an exclusive Bluetooth SIG event in London recently.
McAleese, an MWC 2016 keynote speaker – Jimmy Wales, Mark Zuckerberg, and Brian Krzanich were some of the others – told us that based on his knowledge of product development, we could expect to see the first consumer products sporting Bluetooth 5 connectivity in 2018.
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Quizzed on when handsets made by big name manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, LG, Sony and HTC would start introducing the new standard, McAleese said:
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That means our first taste of Bluetooth 5 is likely to come in the form of the iPhone 8S or 9 – it’s thought that Apple will ditch the ‘S’ moniker in 2017 and jump straight to the iPhone 8 – and the Samsung Galaxy S9.
Obviously if Apple sticks with its odd-year ‘S’ naming, we’ll be talking about the iPhone 7S or 8 instead.
You heard it here first.
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What will the 2017 and 2018 iPhones be called? Let us know in the comments below.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
