Q: can not connect bluetooth iPhone to macbook pro

I am talking with the support supervisor at Apple and he cant connect his Iphone to a Macbook either. I am on hold while he does some troubleshooting. Will let you all know if he comes up with a soluton.

I had the same problem i just turned on iCloud on both devices and logged in  (iPhone 5 and macbook air) and turned on photo streaming and all my photos from my macbook synced on the photo stream on my phone

starpool1 wrote:

 

I had the same problem

Not at all the same problem.

Just having same problem now..only remembered from last phone I had I've been here before. Apple phones don't connect to macs because with icloud it's not necessary. Iphone bluetooth just connects to other devices. That is the answer I got from AppleCare support a year or so ago. Now I have a new iphone (5s) forgot all that have been wasting my time energy trying in vain to connect. Answer: IPHONES WON"T CONNECT TO A MAC VIA BLUETOOTH. Let me know if anyone knows different.

Spent hours trying all the BlueTooth tricks such as deleting BT .plist file, resetting PRAM and SMC.

Tried many times over to no avail.  Then realised that iPad was connecting so realised problem is with iPhone 5 not MacBook.

Searched for iPhone BT issues and found this string.  No help other than confirming iPhone does not work (other than for me unneeded hot spot tethering) with MacBook.

At least I will not waste any more time.

My old Nokia phone from years back had BT which worked for transferring files from phone to phone and to PC -  I thought I had made a wise move moving from the latter two platforms to Apple.  I am becoming more and more unhappy with Apple's incompetence in basic technology - very good at producing dynamic launch events with often obscure innovations at the expense of basics.

mmabood wrote:

 

basically you are saying that I pay for something that is not going to work.

shame on apple

No, shame on you for not doing due diligence. 

The iPhone also will not do my grocery shopping nor will it babysit my children.  For shame!

Finchale wrote:

I am becoming more and more unhappy with Apple's incompetence in basic technology

Not incompetence at all.

Just the opposite actually.

I too had the bluetooth connection issue with iPhone 6 Plus. I needed the feature that used to work because my phone speaker went inoperative and I wanted to use my MacBook Air El Capitan 10.11.1 for it's speaker phone capability. I am sure that it used to work.

After doing some reading I tried the tethering and that is the only way the pairing would work.

Sorry to say that this useful feature of bluetooth speaker phone on the computer is now inoperative.

It now seems that Voice calls using FaceTime is now disabled also. The connection to the iPhone is disabled.

Continuity, the feature that allows you to make and receive calls from your computer doesn't require BlueTooth pairing. It does require that both devices have BT turned on and that both are on the same WiFi network.

See this article for help:

Use Continuity to connect your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac - Apple Support