Cannot pair bluetooth - iPhone to Macbook Air

Thank you very much. Turning on WiFi calling (in Mobile Data settings) indeed solves the Bluetooth pairing issue !!!

Yes. I am.

As has been stated here multiple times, that is not and never has been a feature of iOS.

If someone at Apple told you it was, they were mistaken.

hjalmar240 wrote:

no solution found

That’s because there is no solution. It is not a supported feature and never has been. And there is no need for it.

There is nothing to "fix". It is working as designed. I'm sorry if you don't find that "helpful", but that won't alter reality in any way.

You can send feedback to Apple at https://apple.com/feedback

Continuing to beat this dead horse in the forums accomplishes nothing.

It's not just Macs, from my experience. It's any device that has a pairing code. For example, I found the problem first with my BT security keys that I use for two factor authentication. I was trying to connect them to my iPhone 14. Apple support sent me to the Genius Bar to get a new phone. But they also had the same problem with their iPhone 13. And they confirmed that my phone was healthy. It turns out to be bug in ios 16. I was hoping 16.1.1 would fix it, but it does not. And, before anyone says it's not supported, I was using my security keys with my iPhone 13 and ios 15.x.

In addition to the problem already described, I did notice that when do connect my iphone to the macbook -- which instantly goes to not connected status -- the ios versions reported under the "i" are wrong. The Macbook says it 16.1 and my phone is 16.1.1. And, yes, I did do a forget my device a few times to make sure it was not remembering my phone when I was connecting with 16.1.0. Also, I don't know if anyone reported this, but when I look at the list of not connected devices, hovering over each device will have a pop-up box saying "connect". But the iPhone on the Macbook does not come up with a connect box. Lots of weird things. I certainly kept the Genius Bar guys going for a while!

But my BT is working fine with my Airpods and "dumb" BT devices. It's the pair codes that seem to be at the heart of the issue.

I'm not positive, but I think NFC is also screwed up. My BT security keys also use NFC and those didn't work either.

Thanks for the reply. I understand the vulnerability threat. Nevertheless, the message could say that you cannot pair between masters (It does tell you cannot pair with the iPhone; does it know it is an iPhone or does it just get the name ?). Or at least Apple's doc should explain.

Clearly, reason is not MacOs with iOS, as iPhone and iPad do not pair either. It would be interesting to confirm the root cause (2 masters).

claudeFromToulouse wrote:

I think it is the intended (even though not explained properly) behaviour. I would suspect that for some reason, they removed the slave mode from iOS or MacOS devices.

They didn’t remove it; it was never there. Because there is absolutely nothing that it is needed for.

@several who they don't pair and ask people to explain why - you are revealing a lack of understanding of earlier functionality. As several have noted - actually, in iOS 15 and macOS 11, it was possible to pair Bluetooth on iPhone with a MacBook Air M1 as a bluetooth device (and also on Apple intel macs) - functionality which continued to work when upgrading to macOS 12. in iOS 16 and macOS 13 as of today's date latest updates, it is now broken.

As others noted as well, the pairing of an iPhone as Bluetooth device on a Mac in this manner, made it possible to use applications sold in the App Store and approved by Apple such as Type2Phone from Houdah, allowing a user to quickly touch-type on a phone from a MacBook's keyboard, without having to buy a separate Bluetooth keyboard. Was very helpful for messaging apps.

It seems that Apple has changed the functionality and dropped a supported feature *without* making this clear. Worse, AppleCare support techs "Genius" level (i.e. entry level!) don't know this and so waste users time suggesting to reset network settings on Mac or Iphone, re-install macOS, reset all settings, etc., if one does have support.

Apple can do what it wants but it is legitimate to complain about a premium product company that markets for caring about the user experience, doing this. Also, increasingly, Apple *forces* users to update macOS and iOS. For example, my watchOS, I couldn't update a security fix, without updating to a major new version of watchOS which also required updating to a major new version of iOS 16 first, breaking bluetooth pairing on Mac-to-iPhone. Until recently, each device would receive many years of security updates to the earlier OS versions.

The type-to-phone apps also are still in the App Store without any notice, a store Apple runs at great profit. Houdah has graciously edited their App Store comments telling users not to buy the app until this is fixed if you have newer macOS / iOS, although it works on older systems still. Houdah - a great company! Now that's user-friendly support. Their products are extremely useful and Apple increasingly breaks the functionality / makes it more challenging for developers.

Sorry. It was working for me until I upgraded to IOS 16. The issue is not just with the connection between my new iPhone and my Mac, it was with any BT device that has a pairing code. So my AirPods work and my dumb shower radio work. But my iPhone and BT security key no longer works. There seems to be an issue with pair codes.

I went to the Apple Genius Bar and they reproduced the issue and supposedly put in a bug report. I've called Apple tech support and got escalated to supposed experts that all believed my phone should pair and act as a hardware security key.

Why Apple cannot get this working after having it work is a bit of a mystery. Not once have they said it shouldn't work.

It’s probably not 2 masters, because you CAN pair two Windows PCs. It’s probably because neither device has a Bluetooth slave data transfer profile.

There is no "issue" to be "solved". It is working exactly as intended.

Apple has not changed this functionality. This is the way it’s been since iPhone OS 1.0. I know. I was there. I’ve used every single version of ios since the beginning.

I have the same software configuration but little bit different hardware ( MacBook 15 intel and iPhone XS), however I obtain the same results when I try to pair the device via bluetooth: Pairing unsuccessful - MacBook not supported.

Its seems a software failure, but where: IOS 15.1 or macOS 12.0.1? I hope apple was aware of this.

Have had the same issue since updating to the M1 MacBook Air (currently running Monterey 12.3) & iPhone 13 Pro Max (current iOS 15.5).....I'm forced to "forget device" on both & attempt to pair them again to prevent Airdrop issues - will only pair if I select iPhone on MacBook (won't pair by selecting via iPhone) & now it says "device not supported". This is beyond frustrating as it defeats much of the ecosystem purpose!

I went to apple.com/feedback and reported this as a bug under macbook, and linked this thread and pointed out it currently has 711 users with the same problem. Don't know if it will help, but it can't hurt. That's how we can report it to Apple, if anyone else cares to bug them. If all 711 people posted feedback about bluetooth at once maybe they'd notice and listen ;-)