iOS 7 - Airdrop Problems

The other device needing to be awake for it to work is a bit lame.

Apple can do find my friends or find my iPhone if the device is not awake. AirDrop should work as well.

i cant connect with my macbookpro. says macbook is not supported on my iphone.

I think I figured this out.

I was not seeing my friend but he saw me.

I added his Apple ID email to his contact's icloud email listing.

I can now see him.

I think airdrop doesn't direct see people by you, but looks up their Apple ID from your contacts and then sees if they're close by, maybe.

I did just realize you said icloud email is in contacts.

Is it specifically labeled the icloud email?

That worked for me. I realize it would be silly if you had to also specifically label it the icloud email though.

I have a similar problem. I can receive airdrop messages from my husband and Ipad, but cannot detect either when trying to send an airdrop. If anyone knows how to fix this please let me know.

Oh I forgot I am using an IPhone 5.

The person you are trying to airdrop to has to have their phone or ipad awake, not locked and asleep.

You can only see them when their device is awake.

Do you have your husband in your contacts on the device you can't see him from, and is his "iCloud email" in your contacts the same one they use for itunes?

For example, since my friend's Apple ID email was something like gobblygook@me.com, I added that email to his contact card in my phone, and made sure it was listed as his "iCloud" email. Then all of a sudden I could see him.

So whatever email address your husband uses for his apple ID, is that email in his contact info on the device you are trying to see him from, and is that marked as his "iCloud" address?

Having exactly the same problem between my girlfriend's and my iPhone 5s, as well as between my iPhone 5s and my mom's iPad 4th gen. gopking (OP) couldn't have described it better. I'm okay with the device needing to be unlocked (Wi-Fi goes into sleep mode when the device is asleep), but I can't see my contacts in AirDrop unless I turn on "Everyone". Also, when they do appear, they are generic grey faces, not user pictures. 😐

What's super weird is I remember this having worked perfectly when I was on iOS 7.0. Now all the devices are on iOS 7.0.2.

Do you have the contact's iCloud email address listed as iCloud?

I'm not sure if it matters, but I could not see a contact at all, and I added his apple id email address to icloud email. Email can by home, work, iCloud, etc. I added it as iCloud and then could see him.

I have. Added the emails in the iCloud fields instead of 'work' or 'other'. Only see the grey heads, that too only when it's set it "Everyone".

OK. Bummer. I thought maybe I was onto something since it fixed mine. It seems to be a bug with how it is identifying who's in contacts. Double checking exactly what's different between the two contact cards might help, if one works and one doesn't, but I realize you've likely already done that and more to troubleshoot.

I would definately submit a but report at https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/ if you're registered as a developer (it's free, you don't need the paid developer account to report bugs).

I would report it but doing the steps I mentioned fixed mine so I don't know the issue correctly anymore.

Thanks.

I have had the same issues on a few iPhone 5s phones now. Everything looks good and the settings on the phone are correct however the device cannot be found on any of my other devices (Powerbook, iMac, other phones, etc). I took the phone back to the Apple store (Genius Bar) and they couldn't figure it out either. They game me a new phone and sent me on my way. Well, I am having the same issues on this phone as well. The AirDrop appears blue, bluetooth is on and so is WiFi. Both devices are on the same network. On the Powerbook I can see other devices in AirDrop however the phone will never appear. I have restarted, reinstalled the system, allowed the Genius guys to do a hard reinstall, everything.

All I can think of is that there is a glitch somewhere in the new iPhones 5s or in the new IOS.

Hoping that Apple will address this issue and release a fix.

In another Apple Store last night trying to figure out why AirDrop is not working and this kid (young man) walks up and tells me that the Air Drop does not work between desktops and phones. It is only phone to phone.

Why didn't the Genius Bar guys know this? They had even given me a new iPhone thinking that mine was broken. Talk about lack of product knowledge.

So if anyone is also struggleing to connect their phones with their computers, here is your answer to why they don't see one another.

Interesting, because I have found that I can connect PC (granted a windows one!) to my phone when phone is operating as wifi hotspot.Have you tried that with a Mac?

It seems to me that the phone/PC can actually "see" one another, but that the implementation of Airdrop/iOS7 on the phone hides that fact - they never seem to appear to each other when you turn Bluetooth on.

As I have explained above, even though phone to phone 4s and before don't seem able to "see" one another because they don't have Airdrop, in fact they can - because third party apps can work just fine using BT and wifi separately.

Apple have managed to do a really messy implementation here!