Q: Airdrop not working for iphone 5?!?!?!?!

Other people can find me on their airdrop but I cannot find them. I've done a hard reset and erased network settings but still nothing. My contacts are backed up on icloud so I don't know what else to do.

I think it might have something with my phone not recognizing other people's contacts. Icloud contacts are synced so I don't know what else I can do.

After upgrading my iPhone 5 to iOS 7.0.2, airdrop still doesn't work.

In the end I reset the phone and resort from iCloud and now the airdrop works just fine.

The other persons phones need to be awake.

I had the same problem.  I solved it by turning both my Ipad and Iphone5 completely off.  Once I turned these devices on again, I checked again to make sure Airdrop was turned on and voila Airdrop works fine on both devices now.  Give this a try!

Pat K.

There are 4 iphones in my house and the are all connected on wifi and airdrop perfectly.  My ipad 4 doesn't.  I have removed the wifi from ipad and iphones.  The ipad still can't see or be seen by any other devices.  Does anyone have a suggestions?

First set the airdrop to everyone, does that work?

Initially it doesn't work on my iPhone 5, after I did a reset and restore to my iPhone 5 and it works now.

Amazingly ridiculous, but Airdrop in Mac OS and Airdrop in iOS7 do not communicate with each other. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirDrop for a little explanation.

Airdrop was working fine. But after the new update ios 7.0.3 it has stopped working. Done restore few times but no luck.

Ive been looking everywhere for a soution between Iphone 5 and Ipad Air, this worked! Thanks!

(Sorry first post) I meant turning both devices on and off.

Thanks for pointing that out.  I could not figure out why I couldn't airdrop a photo onto my iMac from my iPhone.  Frustrating.  I wish they would just follow the general rule of keeping it simple and not flood us with endless half-baked features. 

I just finally figured this out. It is a Blue tooth issue. You have to open bluetooth in settings and ask it to search for devices so the "find" each other!

I had the same problem and figured out.

My case was: airdrop wouldn't connect mi new iPhone 5s with my old iPhone 5.

I Tried all possible combinations of settings: on/off Bluetooth, wifi, airdrop, for everyone/contacts only, disconnected from wifi. Nothing worked. The point is i had my new iPhone 5s with the personal hotspot on, and the iPhone 5 was previously connected there. Even when i disconnected the iPhone 5 of the personal hotspot of iPhone 5s it wouldn't work.  

So what i did was: i turned off hotspot on iPhone 5s, disconnected both phones of wifi, turned off airdrop, wifi and Bluetooth on both phones, and turned off, then on both phones. When they rebooted, i turned on airdrop for everyone in both phones, immediately wifi and Bluetooth started, i shared a picture and " taraaaa" it worked!

That's  because u have set the option to everyone (in control center which u can access by swiping up and u can find airdrop icon clicking on it u can change access permissions) you are able to receive files to send files just ask others to whom u want to send to set the option to everyone in their mobile. Hope it solves your problem