iPhone 12 Pro Max Bluetooth Issues

The phones never had the same name. One was my initials iPhoneX, the new phone was simply named iPhone12pro.

Also i factory reset my car Bluetooth, and only paired the new phone. I don’t even have the old one anymore. My phone still does not work consistently in my car.

That is not the reason for me. My phone was working fine until around September when the Bluetooth started dropping in and out every 30 seconds. I thought it was my headset as everything Apple told me to do didn’t work and they insisted it was not the phone.

I turned off every Bluetooth device in the house, thinking it was trying to connect to another device. That’s not it. I am using my mother’s iPhone to listen to podcasts and music. What a waste of money for the 12 Max Pro!

Gotcha,well honestly I would wipe everything on the phone that’s giving you issues and I mean a hard start where the phone is wiped by going to settings and General,scroll all the way down to where it says Reset and enter press Erase all Content and Settings.. And start over like no one has ever touched it since it was shrink wrapped leaving the factory..

Best of luck and Merry Christmas 🎄

That is an option and it may be the final resort. But before anyone tries it, be sure to back up your phone first. But apparently the engineers at Apple have a bug. What is interesting is that my phone is slowly adding the Bluetooth connections.

I purchased two iPhone 12 Pro Max 256GB phones (one for my wife and one for myself) and both have proven to be impossible to set up in regards to Bluetooth. Neither phone will recognise any of the devices we have working on our iPhone 7's. Both keep searching for devices (left this running for hours) and never finding any.

I have removed all of the Bluetooth devices from the iPhone 7 and even deregistered the iPhone 7 from my Apple account so that only the iPhone 12 is registered, yet the iPhone 12 still fails to identify any Bluetooth devices. This is the same for both iPhone 12's. I have even carried out a full reset and new set up on the iPhone 12 (having only undertaken the full set up process 3 days ago when they arrived) and the problem still remains. I initially thought (as some others did) that perhaps it was the wireless Quick Start process that had caused the issues through naming duplications etc. and the iPhone 7 data remaining on the Apple account and in the cloud but this has proven not to be the case.

Our iPhone 7's both had around 8 Bluetooth devices connected to them (Volvo car, Ford car, Jaybird headphones, Suunto watches etc.) and each initial connection set up was easy and quick. Our iPhone 7's always seemed to find the device we were looking to set up. This is not the case with our iPhone 12's. Apple online chat couldn't resolve the issues and a call with the Apple Tech Support team didn't identify a problem when they undertook the remote diagnostics check. They stated that both the IOS and the Bluetooth chip were showing as fully working. Obviously something is seriously wrong as Bluetooth set ups should be both easy and fast.

I have decided to send both phones back to Apple for a full refund. While Apple have been helpful and did not question this decision, it's a very disappointing experience with two very expensive products. It's hard to believe that a company like Apple can have got the basics so wrong. I suspect that there is a fundamental IOS issue and that there will no doubt be a software update to fix it but the question is when. It is seriously making me consider an iPhone alternative.

Just wait, they are working on it, it should be better in the next update...as usual 😁 Mine had issues then suddenly started adding bluetooth connections, not all at once but over the course of a week or so.

The BIG question is - How long do you wait for? The phone arrived on Thursday last week and already it showed that a software update was available (which I installed) and then this evening it showed another software update was available (which I have installed) and yet neither have rectified the issue. With the resources and skills that Apple have at their disposal just how hard can it be?

Bluetooth is still tie to your iPhone 7 that your Pro Max replaced. Release it from your iPhone 7 and it will show up. I had the same problem with all my devices including 3 wireless headphones. After I erased my iPhone XR for trade in, then all devices works.

Same happens to me. My new iPhone 12 pro can not connect with my Bluetooth speakers. Doesn’t recognize them. My old iPhone XS with the same iOS can connect without any problem. This is very frustrating, I upgraded but is worst the my previous iPhone. Also streaming music from my new iPhone to my apple car is slow, get “friedegg “ noises, etc. I am considering to returned the phone and keep using my Xs.

I removed all of the Bluetooth devices from my iPhone 7, deregistered it from Apple and turned it off yet the iPhone 12 still wouldn’t see any Bluetooth devices. I’m not prepared to erase everything from the 7 until the 12 works properly as I need a working phone.

It is still in the iCloud I think. Try changing the name in the network for the Bluetooth device. The devices must not identify the 12 pro Max as your 7. The iCloud must show you have two separate iPhones not 12 replace 7.

Thanks for the insight. I will take a look.

I think it’s quite clear that Apple have got something very wrong with the way this works. Bearing in mind every iPhone has a unique identity code then a naming convention set by a user shouldn’t create an issue. Bluetooth devices are designed to be connected to multiple other devices and in a seamless way. One last try and if that fails then the phones are going back. I’ve lost days on this already.

It was the same for me. IOS 14.3 made no difference at all to my new iPhone 12 Pro Max and it would still not recognise any Bluetooth devices. I now have IOS 14.3 on my old iPhone 7 and that’s struggling to find the Bluetooth devices it used to have on it. I had removed all of the Bluetooth connections from the iPhone 7 in order to try and get them to connect to the new iPhone 12 (it didn’t help). Roy.Thong is right that it seems like a duplication and cloud issue and hence my iPhone 7 is now struggling to find Bluetooth devices. Having wiped and reloaded both the new 12 and my old 7 a couple of times over the last few days to try and solve the problem it’s obviously caused confusion in the 7. I’m hoping that waiting 24hrs will solve it.

I wasn’t prepared to wait a week for the new phone to start doing what it should be doing straight out of the box. Bluetooth is critical for me. Earlier today I returned the two iPhone 12 Pro Max 256GB phones to Apple and obtained a refund. Time to consider a Galaxy.

I was having the same issue but this worked. I went to my previous iPhone and clicked on each appropriate bluetooth device and asked to "Forget this device". I had to re- "pair" all of my bluetooth devices with my new iPhone. But at least it worked.

Following advices form this blog I solved. You need to go to the each previous iPhone u have registered and click “forget this device” for each Bluetooth device you want to connect to the new iphone12. It worked seamlessly.