HTC, can you comment on SPP support for this phone?

I don't think HTC responds here. I think this is just a user-to-user forum. You might be better off contacting HTC tech support directly.

Best of luck.

I called HTC support and they were unable to confirm Bluetooth SPP support for the HTC Incredible. They mainly just told me that they can only recommend Bluetooth voice devices. I also tried contacting HTC USA HQ, but they never returned my voicemails.

At this point I have given up on HTC explaining why SPP is not working on the HTC Incredible.  I will probably just return the phone and buy one which is known to work with SPP, like the Motorola Droid or Nexus One.

What they aren't telling you is that it has been confirmed that we are not running a 2.1 Eclair version of Bluetooth like the Google Nexus.  Apparently HTC is behind on getting this running on their phones.  The version we have doesn't support SPP and or HID profiles.  Nexus one does out of the box.  I posted about this in another thread but thought you might want to know that we are probably running a previous version when it comes to bluetooth.  I don't understand why they don't immediately issue an OTA and get this fixed.  It just looks terrible that I can't interface this with my car because it doesn't support HID profiles or SPP profiles.

It's absurd.

on Stackoverflow I posted the same question basically. How can they release Android 2.1 (on HTC Droid) when SPP doesn't work? It's like releasing Windows 7 with a network icon but it doesn't work.Finding any documentation about this limitation is impossible. I'd settle for a "It's coming in the next OTA, ETA X Months"..

Well let's not say they're behind the times with their phones because they in fact made the G1 which does have SPP support (I can actually use a bluetooth keyboard with it using a specialized Market app).  It's the fiddling they did with the OS that's causing issues.  I'd say that since my 1.6 G1 is more functional than my Incredible, it must be the 1.5 version of Bluetooth they're using.

Hi Everyone,

I called HTC HQ USA (425-679-5318) and started correspondence with a Product Support Manager.  Officially, HTC Product Support says that Droid Incredible does support SPP!

This does not explain why so many users have SPP problems, or if they intend to investigate and fix my SPP issue.

classic HTC response to inquiries:

ME: I purchased an HTC Incredible from Verizon. It will not pair with my car's Bluetooth electronics. The car is a 2006 BMW M3. The BMW service says that the problem is with the Incredible's Bluetooth software. I have successfully connected to my car with other phones from Samsung and LG. Additionally your phone is not listed on the BMW compatible website http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Owner/BluetoothYourBMW/CurrentlyAvailableCompatiblePhones.aspx

When will HTC upgrade their Bluetooth software on the Verizon Incredible phone so that it will work with my car?

HTC: Hi, I’m Christina, and I’ll be glad to assist you today

I understand how important it is for your HTC DROID Incredible to work with your hands free accessories. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you:

The BMW website says that the device is not compatible. Right now we have no information as to when BMW will update their software to include the HTC DROID Incredible

Thank you for contacting HTC America Technical Support. Please feel free to contact us again if you have any future questions. Also, I would like to invite you to participate in a customer satisfaction survey located at http://survey.htc.com/worldwide

ME: I understand that my Verizon Incredible phone does not have a complete Bluetooth implementation and that this is the root cause of the problem. I have talked to BMW about this problem and they place the blame on HTC's software. Here is a link to the problem on HTC's own forum http://community.htc.com/na/htc-forums/android/f/91/t/2336.aspx

When will this be fixed so that I can use the phone in my car? My car works fine with previous Samsung and LG phones.

That seems rather rude that HTC would flat out refuse to update the software.  I hope that the support personnel that replied to the inquiry were either poorly educated on HTC's stance, or had to use a translation that comes off as much harsher than the intention; assuming HTC outsources their support team.  This is by no means meant to be offensive, just my experience from talking to support people from various companies.

In any event, it makes me think HTC should consider either releasing their source code (if they haven't already) or somehow allow us to more proactively handle issues on the phone.  Since it's an open platform, is there any way we could simply grab the *functional* binaries from another phone (ie. G1) and replace our own binaries?

This would probably require SU permissions now that I'm thinking of it... and I doubt there is some generic DLL or binary set that can be copy and pasted over, since I'd bet it's all hard-coded into the communication software... if this makes sense.  *sigh*

Here is the HTC response to my inquiry to the lack of SPP support. In short they claim that they have not excluded any part of the android bluetooth stack and that Google did not include SPP.....

Dear **, Thank you for contacting HTC Technical Assistance Center. I apologize for the length of time it took me to respond to your email. With the release of android 2.1 the Bluetooth has been drastically enhanced from what it once was. 1.5 was only capable of the A2DP profile. Checking other providers there published stacks list as Stereo Bluetooth Class 1.5, Version 2.1 + EDR (support profiles, A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HID, HSP, OPP, PBAP) for most of the newer devices. The Incredible is running 2.1 with FTP/OPP for the file transfer, A2DP for the wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for the phonebook access from car kits. From the Incredible We have not removed any of the stacks that Google provided with the software. In fact Google is working on new stacks all the time. I do apologies for the inconvenience however with the published information Google has not announced SPP to be a base stack located within the android OS for 1.5 and 2.1. I want to thank you for contacting HTC. In order to help improve our service I’d like to invite you to take a survey at http://survey.htc.com/worldwide. Signed, ***** HTC Technical Support http://www.HTC.com http://community.HTC.com http://www.Facebook.com/HTC http://www.YouTube.com/user/HTC http://Twitter.com/HTC

Well, then how do they explain how the Nexus One and the original Motorola Droid are able to interface with my SPP GPS?  If they have not excluded any bluetooth profiles, they certainly have some of broken them!

That said, my SPP GPS does work on the Sprint EVO, so HTC does know how to do this properly with Sense UI some of the time.  Perhaps a future update will fix my SPP issue.

I followed up asking pretty much exactly that (Why do others work with SPP devices and yours does not?)

Their response:

HTC works with android to provide you the software on your device. I can not say why other android devices are working as reviewing multiple other providers websites they do not list SPP as a stack available on there device either. Android is developing there own software and stacks from the ground up and it could be that there is a similar stack to most SPP or possibly a very generic stack that some devices pick up on. However again none of the other companies providing android that I reviewed stat that there device is using a SPP stack. Also as previously advised Google is working on new stacks per there developer site that may just not be available yes. I want to apologize for any inconveniences you may have experienced. I want to thank you for contacting HTC.

One of my coworkers has been in touch with some app developers, specifically a maker of a bluetooth keyboard who has been trying to get their keyboard to work with the Incredible.

What was found is that even though we're running 2.1 Android, the Bluetooth stack used by HTC's Incredible is actually an older version (I don't remember what he told me... version 2.0?)

notSoFast: fyi, Google's Nexus One is an HTC-made phone -- without the Sense UI. I do not know how the Bluetooth implementation is with the HTC Evo.

Hopefully, the bluetooth stack will get upgraded/fixed in the Android 2.2 update that's rumored to come out within the next 2 weeks.

In direct contradiction to what HTC support is claiming (that they use an unmolested version of Android including its bluetooth stacks) - a post on the android alliance forum has this to say regarding HTC's Android 2.1 implementation:

And in this version they replaced the Google BluetoothSocket implementation with their own crap which uses a class called BluetoothSppPort. This class is not open source and has no field or method for using a Bluetooth channel instead of an UUID.
The private constructor of BluetoothSocket with the Bluetooth channel / port is not working (I get an invalid UUID IOException).

The only solution (in my point of view) to prevent HTC to do this in future Android versions is the simple switch from private to public in the BluetoothSocket constructor and / or the createRfcommSocket method in BluetoothDevice class.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=5427

Yet of course HTC continues to say they are at the mercy of Google and what they have put into Android.