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

Idris seabright

I agree with you that is my experience everything works.

But the point was that Apple support and Apple supervisor support and Apple technical support supporting the support didn’t know that point

I am having the same problem, connects after pairing then drops out. However my phone seems to be paired,I can back up wireless and see other info, but it does not show up as connected via blue tooth or wifi. Don't know how I did it!

Yeah this whole business is crap. I can’t even sign into iCloud with my MacBook unless I hotspot it with the phone so even if all this iCloud business meant anything it does me no good. I’m not interested in signing into iCloud to get Bluetooth to “work” I don’t even think that’s happening. I think iCloud is just taking up the faulty Bluetooth slack. Isn’t Bluetooth like one of the simplest things? I’ve never had connectivity issues with Bluetooth on anything in over a decad. Just don’t understand all the rage about this apple crap. Yes crap. I am a recent convert and thought these things we’re supposed to be all the rage! Never had these issues with android and windows! But I’m stuck with this stuff now unless I wanna lose a bunch more money. According to people on here support is no help in this matter. Clueless. But I read an article 2 or 3 years old that apple was aware of a problem. And “working on it” that must have been smoke and mirrors. Definitely not impressed with my Apple stuff thus far.

I think not. But I don’t know for sure. I think all that stuff is working because you’re signed into iCloud and has nothing to do with the Bluetooth still not working. Just my guess though. I can’t prove that but I’d go so far as to say apple doesn’t want it to work so you have to use iCloud to get what you want in the connectivity department. My words are opinions only however. I don’t know enough about apple to figure this out but I do know I spent nearly 2k for something that should work better than this! All I wanted to do was remote control my music hdd from my phone. I’m guessing since it’s not making apple any Apple Music/ iTunes money that’s why it’s set up not to work. You guys have all read about the smart watch band company they shut down right? Same thing. It’s about restrictions place on hardware that makes you have to give them more of your money.

I have BT enabled on both my iPhone 12 Max and my Mac Studio. Airdrop does not work either. That's what brought my attention to checking Bluetooth in System Preferences. I cannot keep them connected. Same issue as previous folks. Connects then drops. Another odd thing is my Mac Studio is being identified as my Mac Pro which I replaced with the Mac Studio in December 2021. Air drop worked fine up until this week.

rnschama wrote:

I have BT enabled on both my iPhone 12 Max and my Mac Studio. Airdrop does not work either. That's what brought my attention to checking Bluetooth in System Preferences. I cannot keep them connected. Same issue as previous folks. Connects then drops. Another odd thing is my Mac Studio is being identified as my Mac Pro which I replaced with the Mac Studio in December 2021. Air drop worked fine up until this week.

Once again, you need to neither pair nor connect your devices in order for AirDrop to work. As long as BT is turned on, that's the only thing you need to do with it for Airdrop. I suggest you start your own post with a subject line indicating that your problem is with AirDrop. Your far more likely to get help that way then at the end of this long thread.

I spent hours on the phone with support and I eventually referred to supervisory support and then she referred it to the engineer group and then she finally got back to me and they could never actually figure it out but I think the bottom line is you will never get the Bluetooth to say that it is connected but if you can do airdrop it means Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is working and the way that ended up getting fixed was by signing in and out of the iCloud on both devices

Briank75 wrote:

but I think the bottom line is you will never get the Bluetooth to say that it is connected but if you can do airdrop it means Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is working and the way that ended up getting fixed was by signing in and out of the iCloud on both devices

That is correct because Airdrop doesn't require that the devices be paired or connected using BT.

"Modern Macs and iPhones cannot be PAIRED via Bluetooth, and there is NO NEED"

That is a BUG. It should not be dismissed as a "feature."

Tethering via Bluetooth requires pairing. I have had occasion to require this (I won't bore you with why WiFi tethering, which does work, was not a suitable workaround).

It is more than annoying the way Apple keeps removing important functionality without thought for the consequences.

Exactly, Apple handling of that whole not pairing problem was horrible and they’ve never admitted or explained why. Both my Mac and my iPhone 13 pro were trying to pair and they were sending codes and the codes were put in and they would not pair

When it happened to me I had Apple tech on the phone for hours then I had a supervisor for hours of my time and then they reported the problem to engineering and they came back with no answers whatsoever

so when people like JD Demers come onto the chat acting so clever months later announcing that things don’t need to pair it’s a little annoying after spending so many hours of my own time on the phone with Apple when they didn’t have an answer at time for their own support techs

Due to hearing difficulties...

In my case I have an auxiliary sound system connected to my mac audio output - and by being able to broadcast "or connect" via Bluetooth from my phone to my mac - I wanted to be able to use the Mac/Aux system as a form of Bluetooth speaker.

By not being "Paired" the option to select the mac as the audio output for media play (i.e podcasts etc) is not available.

Yes... there are numerous workarounds, but I think most peoples points her on this issue centre on the fact that it used to work this way for some, and now does not...

Bizarrely, my Amazon echo has no problem doing this, so its definitely a feature that has been accommodated elsewhere.

Hi, I have this problem too - since getting a new iPhone. I can not unlock iMac with AppleWatch... which led me to see if the phone was connected via Bluetooth... and it's wasn't. And when I try to connect - it connects for a second, then disconnects. I've tried all the usual things. Have you found a solution yet?

Hello Randy

I had something very similar six months ago and I spent more than four hours on the phone with Apple support and supervisory support and even sending the problem to engineering they had absolutely no answer on how to pay them

But what ended up solving the problem at least so everything worked it still didn’t pair but all the features worked was basically signing in and out of iCloud on each device

Apple does not for anything to work except through "the cloud". The things that were simple to do like BT and syncing with iTunes have been removed. What happened to iTunes. Why change to "music". I switshed to iPhone thinking that would make it easier to work between devices, WRONG! Looking for a different way to go.

Jerry

I am having very same issue between my iPhone XR IOS 16.1.1 and my 2018 MacMini on Ventura 13.0.1. Prior to Ventura BT connections were fine across all my devices. Now since installing Ventura it does not locate all the devices that Big Sur/Moterey (et al) did. It does locate and pair with my old Apple BT keyboard (A1314), and my Satechi M1 BT mouse, but other devices Doqaus Care1 headphones, my iPhone XR it does 'appear' to connect but only for a couple of seconds before losing connection - even with a 'pairing' code (which is not always displayed - probably only seen in about 10% of attempts). This is an issue that HAS to be known within the Apple Developers, as this has been reported since Ventura's release