Q: iOS 7 - Airdrop Problems

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!

I can't get the PowerBook to even see the iPhone through the pref/bluetooth setup assistant. I know that the phone's bluetooth works because i use it with a headset/car/etc. I also know that the PowerBook works because I have bluetooth devices set up with that as well. However see each other they do not.

As you mentioned, they must be intentionally hidden through the IOS.

I'm sure that there is a hack that I could find to get past this, however I don't need it to work that badly. It would have been nice for Apple to just make thiings "work" as they once did.

Thank you! This was the most helpful response I have seen. I too was having the problem where AirDrop only worked when set to "Everyone" and never worked with "Contacts Only".

I just tested it with my sister. She didn't have her apple ID email address saved in her OWN contact card on HER phone. So she added it, and now it works with "Contacts Only". You were correct, people just have to have their Apple ID email address saved in their own contact card. I don't even have to have her apple ID email saved under her contact info in my phone; her adding it herself was enough. Now it works

Thank you so much for that info! I've been wondering for so long!

I was having the same issue between my ipad and iphone or with my wife's iphone.  However, I found that this problem only occurs when on the wifi coming from my airport express.  When I am downstairs, on my time capsule, I don't have this problem.  I have no idea why that is - especially when the networks are set up identically on the express and the time capsule.

So, it could be the network, not the iphones/ipads.  It works fine on the wifi network at my office...

Hi everybody,

i have a similar problem... i have an iphone 5 and and an ipad 4, both with IOS7. The thing is that when i use airdrop i can only do it ipad to iphone, but when i try to send something from my iphone to my ipad it can't found me ipad...

does anybody have this problem??

regards!

Gonzalo

My wife and I both have iPhone 5s. We cannot connect on AirDrop in our home or on any other network. We try on "contacts only" and "everyone". Our Apple IDs are in each other's contacts under iCloud and it still never finds us. This is extremely aggravating if anyone knows what's going on please help.

Hi all,

I got the IPhone 5s on launch day. I have the ipad3 which as you know does not support Airdrop. I just got the ipad Air and wanted to try out Airdrop between I devices. The iPhone 5s could never see my ipad3 using Bluetooth. In order to transfer photos that way. Using a third party app. My iPhone 5s and ipad Air still can not see each other, through Bluetooth sitting right next to each other.

I tried setting each device to everyone in order to narrow down problems. But still does not see each other. I tried selecting a sample photo as a test. I clicked on the Airdrop button on my iPhone 5s but nothing happens. I have Icloud set up on both devices. What else could I be missing? I watched one video and it seems simple enough.

I really hope Apple fixes this problem soon. Since the ipad Air does not support 120FPS shooting mode I wanted to use Airdrop to transfer files Back and forth.

As a side note I think apple does well on hardware but lacks on the software side. Apple's first rollout of a software App is pretty good in design but never gets updated. And it takes a long time for Apple to fix bugs. Same with Google.

So I am going to try a third party app for what I want to use Air Drop for. There are a few good ones out there.

Photosync, photo transfer are two. I can never remember which of the two I liked the best and these transfer over Bluetooth.

Has anyone sent in a bug report?

Thanks,

John

Hi,

I sort of fixed my own problem. I was in Airdrop and when I went to turn off my iPhone 5s my ipad link popped up on my iPhone. I turned off my iPhone and back on again. And now so far everything is working. I will see if I have any other problems. I don't remember specific situations but with my iPhone certain things similar to Wi-Fi etc. don't seem to work at first. But after I finally get things working it continues to work. I hope this is the case here. It is like a glitch or learning curve is the best way I can describe it.

John

Wife and I finally updated to the iPhone 5S - her Airdrop worked, mine would not, neither with her phone or her iPad, or a coworkers iPhone 5S. Restored the phone w/out any success and the loss of 2 hours I'll never get back, but in the process realized I had 2 Apple IDs in use - one from the .mac days, a second from the .me days. Synced everything to the .me ID, set her phone to 'Discoverable by Everyone' mode, and finally got it to work. I have no idea if it's a long term fix, or if it will work if her phone is set to 'Contacts Only' and iPad set to 'Everyone', but it's a start. Thank you for all the comments and ideas, for which I would by now have given up hope.

Curtis

You rock Syncopator!!!!, I was having this problem, my daughters iPhone 5C and my iPad mini (wifi model) once i added each other’s iCloud emails in our contacts Airdrop works flawlessly, haven’t tested distance between devices but I believe the whole point of Airdrop was intended to be used when you are with another person (face to face) and wanted to share content..... Good luck to all others with these issues!!!! I’m fixed, on to other cool stuff.

THANKS!

I learned pretty quick contacts was looking for the icloud email but still don't get it compleyely.

Is there a reference that says computers don't talk to mobiles and you need the I could email in contacts, etc.?

I do know that the airdrop feature does not work from Mac to iOS, we have an iMac late 2012 running Mavericks and I can not air drop from Mac to phone and from  what I have read in this community, seems to be the case and it's not currently possible. I only have the 1 iMac so I can't test Air Drop to another computer but I am sure it would work. Air drop is working nicely from iPad to iPhone and vice versa, but you do have to make sure both devices are not locked and of course as you, the iCloud email address must be in each persons contacts, it seems there is confusion with other posts that they think their Apple ID is the same as their iCloud email address....

Thank you.  I did the extra step of adding both iTunes username email and icloud email and selecting it as icloud email in the email type.  It worked bit I don't know if all that was necessary or "the rules".

I also had no luck transferring from mobile to computer to myself even, but I do think computer to computer may work.

I wish for a simple official rules list of what email addresses need to be in contacts and identified as what, and confirmation computer to mobile between my own devices is not intended to work...

Peer to peer is a cool tech but I feel I need better guidance on what is supposed to work and how.

I have two I phones that weren't identifying each other for Airdrop. I set both phones to identify everyone, then hard restarted both phones. They now identify each other with the little graphic and I can now choose who to Airdrop to. It seems like the most important thing I did was hard start both phones. I tested them as far apart as 10 feet and they still found one another. Hope this helps those I phone 5 users having trouble with Airdrop.

The way I got airdrop to work was to forget the wifi network I was attached too. Then turned airdrop on to contacts only. AirDrop needs to create an ad hoc network between devices and can't when already attached to a network. You also need the iCloud email to be in the contacts. AirDrop will not work from Mac computer to iPhone/iPad. Hope this helps.