Is there a bluetooth earpiece that you can just listen to audio with?

[Kung Lau]

Any headsets that just stay on while not on "talk" mode?

 

[vexingv]

you're looking for is audio streaming via A2DP bluetooth profile. this needs to be supported by the headset/headphone (ie. stereo bluetooth) and the device itself. AFAIK, the iphone does not support A2DP. my belief is that Apple would much rather you buy/invest in their proprietary accessories, docks, and cables than use an open standard. however, i think there are some third party dongles that attach to the iphone that may allow this stereo audio streaming functionality.

 

[pm]

These are the kinds of things that really get me annoyed with Apple. I agree with vex above - I think Apple purposely crippled bluetooth specifically because they don't get money when someone uses an industry-standard bluetooth headset instead of one of the dongle-based solutions which require a license from Apple to use (because of the iPod port).

This trick used to work back on the pre-2.0 firmware for the iPhone. I'm not sure if they fixed it or not - I gave up on Bluetooth and just use the Apple wired headphones.
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/08/10...ough-a-bluetooth-head/

After you've switched your headset on and it's shaken hands with your iPhone, go into the Visual Voicemail screen and tap the Audio button in the upper right (which is otherwise a Speaker button when your headset isn't on and communicating with your phone). You'll receive an audio selection dialog much like the in-call dialog that allows you to chose where to send the iPhone's audio. As you might guess, select the Headset option, then switch over to the iPod and begin playing music or a video.

Good luck, and please post back if it works or not.