Resolved Can't Connect Old Bluetooth Keyboard to iPhone

[faroZ06]

Deleted because I realized that this keyboard won't work with iOS. But people still have this problem with newer keyboards.

 

[ET iPhone Home]

I have the old, white, full-featured Apple wireless keyboard. You know, the one that actually gives your desktop computer all of the keys that you need

When I try to connect it to my iPhone, the iPhone finds it easily, but when I try to connect, I get the loading wheel. It eventually fails to connect. I've already unpaired it from the two Macs it was paired with and deleted the keyboard in the BT preferences on the Macs. This is an iPhone 4 running iOS 5.0. I had the same problem in iOS 4. The keyboard I am using is supported, according to Apple.

Here's the annoying part. If I press enter or return on the keyboard while the iPhone is "loading", a message flashes for about a second telling me to enter the 4-digit pairing key, but it disappears and says that it failed to connect because of a bad pairing key. There's no way I can enter the number in time, and I don't feel like trying to guess it. It seems like the Apple engineer screwed up and gave it a 1-second timeout!!! But others have no problem syncing their keyboards.

I noticed that the keyboard still has the name I assigned it way back when. Maybe that has to do with it? There's nothing else setting my keyboard apart from the others. Is there a way to fully reset it? Taking the batteries out for a minute didn't do anything.

When it comes to issues like this, I usually go to the Apple Store and have one of the floor people see if they can troubleshoot even without an appt. And almost always they get the issue solved. Are you near an Apple Store?

 

[Intell]

That keyboard is not supported by iOS. Of Apple's, only the mid-2007 aluminum ones and newer are.

 

[faroZ06]

That keyboard is not supported by iOS. Of Apple's, only the mid-2007 aluminum ones and newer are.

No, my model is supported: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4112
All Bluetooth keyboards should be equal anyway, right?

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When it comes to issues like this, I usually go to the Apple Store and have one of the floor people see if they can troubleshoot even without an appt. And almost always they get the issue solved. Are you near an Apple Store?

Yes, I am. Though it's going to be annoying to go there. It seems like a really obscure bug that Apple hasn't bothered to fix since it's been there for a long time. I doubt that they're going to be able to figure it out within a reasonable amount of time, but I'll give it a shot once I can. I am confident that this is a bug that just has to be fixed, but there has to be a workaround because it works for some.

 

[Intell]

See bolded:

The original Apple Wireless Keyboard, introduced in 2003, is not compatible:

Apple Wireless Keyboard (2003): Features a white case and uses four AA batteries.

In addition, many third-party Bluetooth keyboards that use the Apple keyboard layout are also compatible. Check with the keyboard manufacturer for additional information.

 

[faroZ06]

See bolded:

WHAT? How the heck did I read that 6 times to be sure and not see that? Well, that sucks.

 

[Intell]

It does suck. Those keyboards are really nice. If you jailbreak, you can use the Bluetooth Keyboard application in Cydia to connect it. It uses the BTstack instead of iOS' Bluetooth stack.