can't find iphone drive in finders on macbook pro

As promised, I am posting the solution after speaking with Jerome on the Apple Creative Media Team.

* Please see side note at the bottom on my feedback to Apple survey on my experience.

• It turned out that my MBP16 Finder was not set to show Locations where the connected iphone13 would show.
• There is no Preferences in my Finder either after reading this article on how to show Locations on the Sidebar:
• There is no location in Finder on my Mac - Apple Community <- so this article did not help.
• I clicked on Finder -> Settings -> and found "Sidebar"
• Checked everything and the iphone13 showed up under a small arrow under Locations in the Sidebar of the MBP!!!

I hope this helps others.

• To add a super valuable tip, Jerome added that to download photos and media quickly from my iphone to my MBP, user Image Capture app on the MBP.
• I quickly added this app to my LaunchPad because I'm a heavy user of photos/ videos to download onto my MBP and 2 external SSD drives connected to my MBP.
• The 2 SSD drives are for mirroring all my backups.
• I'd Time-machine backup my MBP image daily onto 1 SSD drive.
• On a weekly basis, I'd mirror SSD #1 onto SSD #2.
• To backup the "time machine" equivalent on an iphone 13, Jerome taught me to use restore, again on the Finder sidebar -> Location -> iphone -> backup.

Side note:

Thank you so much, SBerman, for the helpful suggestions. I have tried all your suggestions before signing up for the first time in this Apple Community and I truly appreciate you reaching out to help.

I spent 47 minutes on the telephone with the first-level support. They did not know the answer to my question.

I was finally escalated to Jerome in the media support.

• I converted to become an apple user in 2016.
• I started coding in 3rd grade. I was a heavy Microsoft user.
• I did not like unix; hence, it took me a long time to convert from PC to Apple products. I own apple shares though.
• Although many of my apple questions were not media related, he was able to answer my technical apple-related questions within minutes.
• In 2023, many apple users are technical. It would be great if Apple could provide more training and even unix classes to their first-level support to better help the more technical apple-user demographics.
• Or, set a maximum number of minutes for the first level to resolve problems (not 47 minutes, maybe 30 minutes)
• If the user appears to be more technical, I would suggest answering, "I do not know the answer to your question but let me find out"

You're right. I did miss the version 13.1. I probably did hit update to update apps instead. I am now at version 13.1. I read that catalina was the latest version to see my iphone drive on my MBP. Thanks for the help, Apple support opens tomorrow after new year and I will call them. At least I have my version updated. I will post here if I get a good solution from apple support to download my iphone photos onto my mbp. Thanks for the help again!

Thank you so much for the prompt response! It's my very first question ever here and I appreciate the response. I actually tried this link before coming here for help. Thank you though!