I bought my wife a new iPad for Christmas, but it cannot find her iPhone, though a prompt comes up on her phone to sync to an iPad; the iPad can't find her phone. I have restarted both devices multiple times, I have spent over three hours on the internet searching for solutions, and nothing that seems to apply works, and I'm out of patience
I have never had trouble with an Apple product, but I'm about to take it back
iPhone XS Max, iOS 18
The following assumes the iPhone and iPad have the same Apple Account in use, and that the account is not shared with others per Apple recommendations.
iPad doesn’t sync directly to or from an iPhone, but both iPhone and iPad can sync to iCloud when the same Apple Account is used, and both can sync to a Mac or Windows PC.
iPhone can back up to iCloud, or to a local Mac or a Windows PC, and that backup can be restored to the new iPad.
A new iPad can display a passcode message about iCloud Keychain, which may be what was encountered.
But there’s no device-to-device sync.
I haven't been able to get into the iPad to find the phone, setting up the iCloud hasn't even been attempted, it's not a step that has appeared yet
Steps that have been completed
Turn on both devices
iPad asks for the language English selected
iPad asks for the country US selected
iPad asks to bring the iPhone close. iPhone asks to set up iPad
iPad spins, can't find phone
iI'm going to take it back must be defective
That's as far as we've got
You will need to interrupt the stalled process with a forced-restart:
Force restart iPad (models with Face ID or with Touch ID in the top button)
If your iPad doesn’t have the Home button, do the following:
After restarting the iPad, keep the iPhone away from the iPad. Allow the new iPad to complete initial setup without attempting to transfer data from the iPhone, or restoring a backup, to the new iPad. Instead, simply set-up the iPad using the same AppleID (now known as your Apple Account) that was used to set-up the iPhone.
When the initial iPad setup has been completed - including allowing the iPad to update to the most recent version of iPadOS if prompted - you can then reset the iPad:
Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPad > Erase All Content & Settings
Having performed the reset, you can bring the iPhone back into proximity of the iPad to perform the transfer/restore from the iPhone if required.
New iPad can't find our iPhone to sync
