Unable to connect iPhone 6 plus (IOS 9) to MacBook Pro (El Capitan)

Question

Unable to connect iPhone 6 plus (IOS 9) to MacBook Pro (El Capitan)

Since I bought my iPhone 6 plus and my MacBook Pro this year, I have never been able to connect them

wirelessly with Airport. I can only connect them with a cable. This week, I upgraded from IOS 8.4 to IOS 9

and from Yosemite to El Capitan. So, I tried again. Each device can see the other as before, but I can't even

get them to try to connect now. Before, I tried to pair but that failed. Now, on the Mac, it says Not Connected.

When I try to connect, there's a bluetooth message that says the network is unavailable. As far as I know, I

have networks on with both devices. When I try to connect from the iPhone, it says Connection Unsuccessful

and Make sure the MacBook is on and in range, which, of course, it is. This is very frustrating. Why can't two

new Apple devices connect with each other?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), Yosemite 10.2.2

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 12:59 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Bob Timmons

Level 10

185,990 points

Oct 1, 2015 4:29 PM in response to stevegoldfield

You posted your question in the support forum for the Apple wireless routers.........the products pictured below.

I have asked the forum moderators to move your post to the iPhone support community.

Reply

Answer 2

Lyssa

Level 8

41,405 points

Oct 1, 2015 5:51 PM in response to stevegoldfield

You say you're trying to connect them to each other...for what purpose? What you want to do may not be possible. For example, connecting an iPhone & Mac via Bluetooth will only work for internet tethering.

~Lyssa

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 1, 2015 6:07 PM in response to Bob Timmons

I opened it in the Airport section, which made me choose one of those products. The options were very bizarre.

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 1, 2015 6:17 PM in response to Lyssa

I take photos on my iPhone and want to transfer them to my MacBook Pro. That's a normal thing to want to do, and it would be possible if Apple hadn't made it impossible to do wirelessly. Apple's literature says that it is possible to use AirDrop (which uses Bluetooth) to exchange files between an iPhone and a MacBook. The problem is that it doesn't work. I think I typed Airport when opening this issue, but I should have typed AirDrop.

Reply

Answer 5

Lyssa

Level 8

41,405 points

Oct 2, 2015 4:08 AM in response to stevegoldfield

My understanding is they don't really connect with one another like you would expect them to. They just need to be in close enough proximity & on the same wireless network. There's no pairing involved at all.

There are some troubleshooting tips at the bottom of this article that may help.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203106

~Lyssa

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 2, 2015 8:43 AM in response to Lyssa

Nope. I've tried all that. So have many other people. A few say they have been able to connect the devices with AirDrop. Most have the same experience that I have. It doesn't work. Apple keeps releasing new software for IOS and OSX, but they don't fix this problem.

Reply

Answer 7

Aug 20, 2016 10:41 AM in response to stevegoldfield

Hi There!

I also tried to connect my iPhone 6 to my Macbook Air 2013 OS X El Captian the same way you were trying to do it (Via Bluetooth) and your correct, it will not work. Apple actually streamlined the process for apple users (and so they could have their own "brand" of bluetooth that they call "AirDrop")

Here's how I transfer pictures & documents between my iPhone 6 and my mac (this is also useful to send to items to other iPhones)

More information on Airdrop for Mac can be found here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203106

On your Mac go to "Finder" and locate "Air Drop":

At the bottom you will see in Allow me to be discovered by: Contacts but you can use the arrow to open a drop box to change it to EVERYONE (contacts didn't work for me since I wasn't set up a a contact in my own phone)

Then follow these steps to turn on Air Drop on your phone:

Once you see your iPhone pop up on the screen, you simply select, drag and drop the items you want to share directly over the contacts circle:

You'll then receive an alert on your iPhone asking if you want to accept the files and where you want to view/save them i.e. iBooks, Google drive (if you have it), etc. then your DONE!

Hope this helps! Good luck 🙂

Reply