Cannot pair bluetooth - iPhone to Macbook Air

Oh, KiltedTim - how can you say that? Are you even reading what people are posting here?

There are applications that require Pairing. Many of us have used the process successfully and routinely for years. Recently it's stopped working, in a consistent and repeatable failure pattern. Apple Support has told me they know there's an issue with it.

You're a Level 10, so you hold some sway. But your constant refrain that nothing is broken is not helpful. It's starting to sound like gaslighting. If you're going to engage, please do so constructively.

I want to use my iPhone 12 as a personal hotspot to my Mac in order to use my phone's excess cellular data allowance. That is why I want to use Bluetooth and not WiFi - if I enable WiFi on the phone I will be using that network for downloads instead. With WiFi disabled, my Mac won't link - I had hoped to use Bluetooth for this.

I think I have managed this before but Bluetooth connection now drops out after a second or two.

Do I have to use a cable connection to download from my phone when its WiFi is disabled?

When you use your iPhone as a personal hotspot with WiFi enabled, and at least one device is connected to it via WiFi, the iPhone will only use cellular data for downloads. The WiFi is only used to share the cellular data connection.

here is my recently paired devices, iPhone 12 was pairing to the MBPro M1 Max it still pairs to the iPhone 7, I can also pair iPhone 7 to 2012 MBPro, I cannot no longer pair iPhone 12 to either MBPro. Photos below will show MBPro M1 Max recently paired devices, old MacBook Pro, iPhone 7 and iPhone 12, photos will also show connected to iPhone 7, photos will also show iPhone 7 connected to 2012 MBPro Catalina. Just tried connecting all of them tonight.

Do you think we are lying to you, the MBPros do and or did connect to iPhones via blue tooth.

1) 2021 MBPro connected to iPhone 7 via blue tooth, also show recently paired devices.

iPhone 7 connected to 2012 MBPro

2012 MBPro connect to iPhone 7

iPhone 7 and 2012 MBPro connected via bluetooth

did not dream it up, just came here to find out why the iPhone 12 all of a sudden stopped connecting to both 2012 and 2021 MBPros.

Issue resolved - MacBook will today connect to iPhone as hot-spot and remain connected when I disable iPhone's WiFi (wasn't staying connected before though I am doing nothing different now). I can now do downloads using iPhone's excess cellular data allowance as well as when working away from any available WiFi network.

Thanks for that KilterTim, think you repeated that several times in this thread, I am working why my wife's phone is not syncing iMessages between her iPhone and MacBook Air, we thought the problem was in the bluetooth, and now finding out the network reset is helping, along with a few other things,

July 1st 2022,

it doesn't work at all here, no single iOS can connect to my mac anymore. All devices have latest updates.

Any solution ??

PS > iOS devices won't connect with each others as well !! what is going on ??

Ran both iOS 15.6 and MacOS Monterey 12.5 updates overnight, no change, still doesn't connect via BT between the iPhone and either my MacMini or MacBook Pro M1 running Monterey. :(

On to hoping on 15.7 and 12.6?

I have the same problem. iPhone 13 ProMax and Apple MacBook Pro M1 2020. It connects and after a second the connection breaks. I tried forget device restart on both devices and the result is the same :(

This problem occurred after I updated the iPhone to 15.6 software version.

When I try to connect from my phone to my computer, a message appears: Pairing Unsuccessful "****'s MacBook Pro " is not supported.

@Uniblab - what? I wasn't replying to you - re-read my message. I've done my testing, and have not been successful. I was pointing out explicitly with a screenshot that the bluetooth function connection is supported, and simply does not work.

Not to worry. And a testing update - I did the network reset and it did nothing but forget all my wifi settings and reverted my phone name to "iPhone". And Facetime did nothing. I have the latest iOS on a 13 Pro Max and Mac Air M1 13" with the latest Monterey. The hotspot is not working, so if I am away from WiFi I can't use my 5G/LTE to connect on my Mac.

This worked on my Android phone with no problems.

"The hotspot is not working, so if I am away from WiFi I can't use my 5G/LTE to connect on my Mac. "

I was with you until this comment. What do you mean by "away from WiFi"? The WiFi to tether your 5G phone connection to your Mac is a direct device-to-device connection, so you can't be "away" from it.

I can't pair my devices by BT either, as you'll see from my earlier posts. But for the purposes of tethering (when I'm away from home and need my mac to use my iPhone's internet) the personal hotspot connection via direct WiFi connection is working fine now (after I did the network settings reset on the iPhone). I access it from the WiFi Menu Bar item on the Mac (personal hotspots appear up the top). It takes a few seconds to appear. If it doesn't appear there, I can prompt it to appear by going to the Personal Hotspot screen on my iPhone.

It used to be that I couldn't make that direct WiFi connection ("connection failed") if I had BT enabled on the Mac, (which was super-annoying), but since the network settings reset I can do it while still having BT on.

One other thing — don't test it while you're actually at home/work with a normal WiFi network that both devices connect to, I think that can make it fail. Test it away from all your other networks.

Same problem. My WiFi went out and Frontier won’t fix the problem for three days so I have to use my iPhone hotspot. Only it WILL NOT WORK with my brand new MacBook Pro running OS 12.6 ! It will not pair even though the number appears on both screens. It will not allow me to choose the iPhone hotspot from the Mac. I restarted both devices and still get the “pairing unsuccessful” error message

I’m having the same issue with Ventura 13.0 and IPhone 14 Plus. I agree that it is not necessary for Desktop files, Photos, etc. But, it is definitely an issue for Mirroring for streaming content and apps that I cannot utilize on my laptop. I agree that a significant reason for having all Apple products is their ability to communicate electronically without issue. This is a major issue for me and others! Please fix with the next update. No need to have removed the capability anyway.

My interest in the connection between a MacBook Pro and an iPhone via Bluetooth was based in the following:

When I am at my summer camp I access the internet via the hotspot on my iPhone. As I understand it, the MacBook Pro can autoconnect with the iPhone hotspot as long as both devices are logged in to the same iCloud account. However because Mac and the iPhone are not connected via WiFi yet, they cannot autoconnect via WiFi and a prompt comes up to announce that the iPhone hotspot is available, do I wish to connect?

What I am trying to achieve is true autoconnect to my hotspot, ie, I want it to connect to my iPhone hotspot by default in instances where the general WiFi connection I use (at home) is unavailable. My thoughts were that if the iPhone and the Mac could connect via Bluetooth, then they would be associated with each other and the WiFi would then autoconnect.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the definition of what they mean by autoconnecting: that they in fact mean that this notification pops up asking if I want to connect to my hotspot and offering a connect button. If so I consider that less attractive than the thing just auto-joining which I prefer.

Jiggering around with the settings with the local router shut off and disconnected I noticed the auto-join option for the hotspot becomes visible, but checking it doesn't survive and it disappears once the local router is reconnected.

Am I all wet in what I am looking for? Anybody figured this one out already?