iOS 18 Bluetooth Connection problems

So, I spent over two hours trying to troubleshoot this issue today with Apple Tech Support. Completely wiped my phone and reloaded from backup with iOS 18. Nothing worked and the same issue with Bluetooth dropping out whenever I do or touch anything with the iPhone still exists. This will have to be a software correction via an update. As I am traveling I am not at home but I can only imagine that this will be screwed up on CarPlay as well. I am pretty disappointed that none of this worked and am hoping they correct this soon.

Since upgrading to IOS 18, I’ve also been unable to connect to my Bose headphones or my Soundcore earbuds. This issue never occurred with a prior IOS, and started immediately after the upgrade. I’ve tried all of the recommendations here: soft reset of my iPhone, resetting the network settings, “forgetting” my devices and attempting to reconnect, etc. At best, I’ve been able to connect for 30 minutes or less, then it fails again.

This issue is a fundamental one and needs immediate correction. I’m presently using wired earbuds as a stopgap solution. Not acceptable.

My Vocal Shortcuts has never even been "set up" and has always been disabled so that doesn't seem to be the answer for me. And, I updated to 18.1 a couple of days ago and that did not help either. I still have the bluetooth cutting out and in, as well as not being able to connect to various vehicles BT stereo... Anyone know anything else?

My vocal shortcuts setting was already set to off, so that fix doesn’t work for me:(

Help. Phone wont pair with the car unless I delete and re-pair EVERY TIME I use it. Come on Apple get your act together. This is NOT acceptable. NONE of the suggested fixes work for more than 24 hours. Does 18.1 fix it?

It happened to me first with car play which before IOS 18 was flawless ! Since 18 upgrade I go two miles and car play drops every single time never ever did this before the other problem I am experiencing now after 18 upgrade is crackling dropping for short times with Bluetooth never happened before the 18 upgrade so those are the two problems I am having now and I am using the pro max 16 max , My 15 pro max was perfect UNTIL I upgraded it to IOS 18 then it started doing the same stuff before that it was 100% solid connections never ever dropped a connection on car play or Bluetooth

[Edited by Moderator]

This bug also affects Teslas using an iPhone as the car key. Several people have found this. After a random period, while the iPhone says it's connected to the car, it doesn't open the car when you walk up to it. The workaround is to turn off Bluetooth and then turn it back on again, which reconnects things. I don't know if this would work for other paired devices. In my case I have an old iPhone 9 running iOS 17.4, and that works perfectly as the car key, so that points to the problem being of Apple's making.

Same here, I'm using a garming watch and everything was good until iOS 17.7, when installed iOS 18 the watch connect and disconnect every minute!

This is terrible. My Bluetooth CarPlay keeps cutting out etc since I upgraded. Please fix immediately.

I have the same issue- why Apple is silent on this?

I have a brand new iPhone 16 with iOS 18 installed. I started noticing that my Bluetooth wouldn't connect. When I tried to turn it on in Control Center, the icon would be completely greyed out, and nothing would change with tapping.

When I go to my settings, and click on Bluetooth, it freezes the entire Settings app to where I need to hard reset it to get it to be responsive again. Every other setting is clickable, and I'm able to scroll the settings app, but when I click Bluetooth, it's completely locked up.

Restarting my phone fixes it for a little while, but returns after some time.

After iOS 18 update, iPhone bluetooth would not pair with my hearing aids (Advanced Bionics) even after forgetting the device and turning bluetooth off & on several times.

Everything worked fine prior to update, but phone bluetooth would not discover or pair with hearing aids after update. Macbook (v15.0.1) was able to discover & pair fine.

I shutdown the Macbook to prevent auto pairing and then restarted my phone and and my hearing aids three times before phone finally discovered & paired with hearing aids. Have had this exact same problem with several iOS updates over the last couple years. Apple's proprietary bluetooth is SO FINICKY and very easy to hate!

Exactly the same problem. Never had an issue with immediate BT connection at every startup until IOS 18.0.1. Now my existing BT connection must be deleted from my phone AND from my vehicle and a new pairing must be made every time I start the vehicle.

New Bluetooth settings are annoying in iOS 18 for iPhones! When wanting to do a quick turn off or on, it now forces me to choose which devices and go through multiple screens to get the job done! What happened to just quick off/on with a single swipe and tap? I have one device at home that auto connects to Bluetooth and grabs the sound in my phone. The quick “off” feature was helpful. Now it takes an act of Congress to simply turn it off and on temporarily. Apple turning on new features with updates is also quite annoying. They should be defaulted “off” unless activated. New features are not always desired by users. Why not just let us know it is available and offer to turn it on? Defaulting to “on” feels like a privacy violation at some level.

Bluetooth issues,Siri stutters during GPS navigation, Random disconnects during CarPlay every two seconds, Find my location issues in which I never had while watching my kids while they’re at school and the list goes on with all the bugs that have been thrown on But yet no response from Apple regarding this issue