Bluetooth pairing between iPhone and Mac Mini M1 "not supported"

There may be thousands of users with this problem but only a few care to voice there concerns here on the forum or make Apple aware of the issue. One would hope that Apple monitor these comments and take them on board for future releases but clearly with the release of 15.2.1 and no fix for this issue I’m guessing it takes a long time for fixes to working there way in to the development cycle.

I just submitted a bug report (in addition to my notes here on Jan-2). Let's hope everyone else does the same, because frankly this is unacceptable to have some basic functionality be broken. Was not a problem in Big Sur.

Same issue between iPad Pro and Mac mini M1, just updated OS on both devices, still the same.

Some communication between devices DOES work though and even the Airdrop might suddenly complete at the most unexpected moment after the 'device unsupported' failure.

Someone must understand how the handshake system fails and therefore how to make this work, however painful it might be.

Same issue for me. Brand new M1 Laptop with latest OS and iPhone X with latest software. Won't pair using bluetooth - saying device (latest laptop) not supported. This is a bug that needs to be fixed. I'll register a bug report with Apple. My laptop and my iPhone bluetooth both work independently of each other, pairing to other devices, but won't pair to each other.

Follow-up to follow-up: Installed iOS 15.3 on the iPhone, but still no BlueTooth pairing w/ MacBook Air.

What has changed is that AirDrop is now working again. AirDrop is done via Wi-Fi, and is not dependent on BT pairing, so I assume it was a separate, unrelated problem.

I just discovered this same issue while trying to use the SCREEN MIRRORING feature. Had a video on my iPhone12 Pro and wanted to SCREEN MIRROR it to my Macbook Pro while on a plane, to take advantage of the bigger screen. As other users have mentioned, my Airdrop seems to be working fine.

Wondering if anyone has tried or found a way to SCREEN MIRROR from their phone to their Macbook? My Macbook doesn't show up on the list of devices to SCREEN MIRROR to. My multiple Apple TVs do show up.

has anyone found a fix for this yet? for some reason the bluetooth connection really doesn't want to work. i have a 2019 macbook pro 16" and a regular iphone 13. Both have the latest software installed. i've tried restarting my SMC and NVRAM and pretty much every other possible solution i could find online. i've done the basics of forgetting the bluetooth device and both my macbook and iphone. nothing seems to work. any help would be appreciated.

Hmm, you might be on to something. (I posted about the issue at hand a while ago). I just got a call on my iPhone12, and it also "rang" on my Mac Mini. And still, my phone is NOT connected via BT.

And I believe I know why.. when I reinstalled Monterey I just kept most default settings, so FaceTime was set to use not only my cell number, but also my AppleID. For FaceTime and Messages I normally uncheck everything except my cell number (just to keep things simpler).

And now it seems to work just fine. In short, if I had my AppleID checked then no problem!

Same = Can't pair recent MacBook Pro M1 to iPhone.

A new piece of info (to this thread) is that I disconnected the pairing I had with my old MacBook Pro (Early 2015) running 10.14.6 and my same iPhone and could not get the pairing back.

In addition, I could not pair the MacBooks mentioned above.

Well sad to say that the recent Monterey Update to 12.2.1 on MBP M1, a specific Bluetooth update that caused battery drain whilst asleep fails to fix the iPhone Bluetooth pairing issue. Well done Apple.

Hello everyone, I am not sure this helps but I think it might.

As far as have been able to determine this feature is simply NOT SUPPOSED TO WORK AT ALL ANY LONGER.

A bit obscure but it seems to be that Apple "replaced" the "bluetooth connect facility" for IPhone and/or iPad to iMac with the "Air Drop" service.

That is to say there is actually no longer any need for using bluetooth to "pair and connect your iPhone or iPad to your iMac" .

It seems that now we have to use "Air Drop" to cater for those requirements. Certainly if "Air Drop" is enabled on all devices I can easily move photos and files etc. around between them all. My reading and understanding might not be correct but currently I believe that "Air Drop" does in fact use Bluetooth to identify devices in range etc but then it uses "wifi" for the actual data transfers.

In addition and FYI, the options in "Air Drop" are VERY VERY MISLEADING, basically 3 choices, OFF (not ON at all lol !), or ONLY PEOPLE IN "CONTACTS" - BUT BUT BUT this rather indicates I have to list MYSELF to be in "contacts" - lol lol again !, or "ANYONE" which seems rather risky and a bit odd to me ?? To me it seems logical that all of "my" devices should be able to "Air Drop" to each other WITHOUT me being listed in my own "contacts" and without me allowing "ANYONE" to "Air Drop" stuff to my devices. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT IT SAYS under the "Air Drop" options !! NONE of the three choices shown do actually indicate the ability to have "Air Drop" fully active and available but restricted and limited to being possible ONLY between MY devices. Maybe I am just reading it wrong ?

Anyhow if 'Air Drop" is fully ON and is option enabled on my iPhone and my iPad for "ANYONE" then all works OK.

ZERO marks to Apple in this case for their crappy explanations and lack of clarity and update/notifications on this stuff.

Hope the forum/questions continue until we get good clear answers. If all of my above is incorrect then my apologies in advance and I look forwards to further updates. Cheers.

Yep sounds exactly right. It’s a disgrace. Total lack of respect for users.

The likelihood is that critical OS code documentation is similarly neglected, leading to coder misunderstanding and fatal errors getting through testing.

Bob

thanks for that detailed information

Unfortunately, I have my settings for airdrop as you have suggested, but it still won't work. If I try to transfer a photo from phone to Laptop, I can see the laptop in the list of available devices, but when I select it, the transfer doesn't happen. The laptop is not aware of the file being sent and the iPhone continues to say 'waiting.' Eventually, I just cancel it.

I've used airdrop for years, but since buying the new M1 Laptop with Monterey OS (latest update) and my older iPhone X with latest iOS, I can't connect with bluetooth 9which is what this thread was about) and I can't use airdrop. The devices 'see' each other, but can not connect or transfer.

I've obviously tried rebooting, changing settings around etc etc, but nothing makes airdrop work for me so far

I'd certainly welcome any suggestions re getting airdrop to work as I used airdrop frequently - I would have thought it would be a pretty basic feature for apple to keep running - I've upgraded to their latest hardware and software and now it doesn't work.

BTW my iPhone still can use airdrop to my older devices - it's only the new Monterey laptop that is out in the cold

@Ned1958

Your issue is what I thought I had, and attributed it to not being able to connect my new MacBook 14" and iPhone SE via Bluetooth.

I was finally able to Airdrop files between the 2 devices, but I'm not sure how I did it. As you would know, this is via the shared WiFi.

It may have been due to completing the "Authorise this Computer....." in AppleTV (under 'Account'). Try it and see....

I was just able to transfer a 8.32 , 5 GB, the Bluetooth, from my iPhone 11 to my Mac air by ignoring the information that they were not connected, and clicking on the iPhone video hit send and it transferred in probably less than two minutes.

Hope that helps. Hy