how to use airdrop between a macbook pro and my iphone 5S ?

my android had an built in solution to wireless share any files, with any os.

I used to use Mac at the 90's end..

then I switched to PC and Linux and never found a reason to go back, especially 'cause of the prices. MacAir gave me that reason. And I was using an iPhone, as my android just died 1 year after buying it, so it seemed a good idea to get back to the macintosh enviroment.

Well, but I have to say Apple is pretty disappointing now. My old iMac used to be flawless (yes it had bugs and gave me the beach ball of death several times, but I was asking for it). But it delivered everything promised.

I'm so disappointed with mavericks, airdrop (whats the point of that?), iCloud is so lame, that dropbox can beat it without trying hard.

I don't even bother using icloud, but sometime ago I wanted to share a music created on garage band (great tool, like the oldies) at IOs to my macair. Well, I had to reboot both devices, than go to the iCloud panel and ask to redefine all docs. Well, the music had been droped at icloud for a week a that time, and my mac couldn't find it. Whats the big problem? Why dropbox, evernote (skydrive, google drive, etc..) can work like a charm on every device and my SO EXPENSIVE pair macAir-iphone5s cannot do the trick?

I still love the hardware mac does, and the support. But software is becoming a shame. A dark spot on the apple.

A little offtopic, but I got here because I was searching about airdrop. so disappointing...

For those with Aperture (iPhoto might work, but I don't use it), you can set up shared streams in iCloud. I don't have photo stream enabled, but I have a few shared streams. I'm the only recipient. The shared streams show up in Aperture, which is where I do everything photo related. For my purposes Aperture and shared iCould streams are as good as AirDrop. 😀

Photostream is way to slow for this purpose. Sometimes I have to wait 5 minutes before a pictures is 'streamed'. Again, bad Apple!

For everyone looking to airdrop anything, particularly large files, just use dropbox upload. Airdop and this staggered release of compatibility is a joke.

Thanks Apple for keeping ahead of the times and "innovating"

That's amazing that it doesn't work between OS X and iOS!

Why wouldn't Apple at least make that clear? How much time do you figure we have collectively wasted trying to get air drop working between OS X and iOS?

Geeks on Hugs wrote:

Why wouldn't Apple at least make that clear?

No one here could answer that. Submit your feedback directly to Apple using the appropriate link on the Feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

UnFreekingBelievable. After all the time I have WASTED trying to get this AirDrop thing to work as advertized and it won't because I have only apple products? SERIOUSLY?!?!? Windows has never heard of it no doubt but since I no longer OWN a windows computer, the thought had never crossed my mind that this would not work between iOS and OSX. Unbelievable. No wonder drop box and other software apps flourish with crap like this.

I also just tried for 15 minutes to get send a file from my macbook to my iphone.... It's really a joke, that it hasn't been made more clear. When I thought about it, it became obvious, why it doesn't work (and will never work!): Apple doesn't want us to send for example a Powerpoint-File to the iPhone. Why? Because there is no file system, the user has access to. Where would the iPhone put the Powerpoint-File? There is no place for it on the iPhone. So they would have to restrict the file types.

I don't know... I also find it kind of disappointing. It's typical for Apple, though, to "make decisions for the user". We can't be trusted with access to the file system :rolleyes:

"UnFreekingBelievable. After all the time I have WASTED trying to get this AirDrop thing to work as advertized and it won't because I have only apple products? SERIOUSLY?!?!? Windows has never heard of it no doubt but since I no longer OWN a windows computer, the thought had never crossed my mind that this would not work between iOS and OSX. Unbelievable."

/sign

That's what I'm screamin'!

I found the feedback form and asked about this. Apparently that's how they would gauge if there is an issue with something like this as someone previously mentioned they don't review these forums apparently. Imagine the man hours of productivity wasted collectively among all of us banging our heads against something that should obviously work. Presumably Mac users earn higher than average so if you tallied up the time that's been wasted we'd be talking about some serious money (well for us, not for Apple haha).

If you're going to make something not work the way it so obviously should (i.e. Apples Notes - works between OS X and iOS, Apple Reminders - works between OS X and iOS, Apples Calendar - works between OS X and iOS, Apples iTunes - works between OS X and iOS...iBooks, Maps, FaceTime, iMessage, etc. etc. then let's just randomly make a product called AirDrop not work between the two and keep it to ourselves) then you need to scream out that fact. "Even though this LOOKS like a button it is actually a steering wheel." Then we're left to press a button all day. A more accurate annalogy is "Even though this LOOKS like a button it's actually just a picture that doesn't do anything." But they let us press away at the useless button.

Message was edited by: Geeks on Hugs

Der Pfahl...well actually there's certain file types that this would be useful for...especially photos which is what I was trying to move when I "discovered" this inane design decision.

Uploading a large file (300m+) to dropbox? I wouldn't call it FAST at all!

I was disappointed airdrop doesn't work yet between IOS & OSX, but this frickin crying from everyone in here is unbelievable!!! Especially when you start touting Microsoft in here, its gone too far!!! Lol!

There are other ways around it at the moment, Message it to yourself, email it to yourself. You'll live, you'll be fine!!! It doesn't take that fricken long people!

These are the same people that complain their TV remote is across the room, when their sitting in front of the TV.

I'm sure the feature is on the to do list, especially if you pay attention and read about a possible file manager app in the future of IOS. What do you think that could possibly be used for? It will be for the lazy susans in here!

I hate to resurrect this thread, but it's probably still visited somewhat frequently as I had a the same question about Air Drop and the first google search result brought me here. If you find yourself frequently needing to send photos, websites, documents, or items off of your clipboard to another Apple device, I would highly recommend a third party app called DeskConnect. It's free, and it has always worked perfrectly for me.

You can't

Agreed with many of the replies to this query, really Apple should give different names to the apps, I would suggest Airdrop Mac and Airdrop iOS.

My experience is Airdrop works fine Mac to Mac or iOS to iOS, so the principle of Airdrop (transferring files over a local WiFi network) works as expected.

Solutions such as using iCloud storage, iMessage or emailing the required file is dodging the issue, we really want to transfer locally quickly and cleanly without going via the wider Internet and perhaps impacting on data allowances.

Of course you might transfer files using iTunes and this could be accomplished either by USB or WiFi syncing, but I personally don't always want to sync just to transfer a movie or a few photos, and I might want to transfer my files to or from a device I wouldn't normally sync with.