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Bluetooth Issues

S

steve1960

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 23, 2014
293
300
Singapore
I have waded through many posts on the subject but the majority are vehicle related / handshake related. My issue is this:

My iPhone 6 and my wife's iPhone 6 both running iOS 8.2 can see and connect to our Flip portable speaker and our Denon home surround sound system. This is good as it is probably the only instance where we really use Bluetooth.

Both phones see my early 2011 Macbook Pro but neither will connect giving an error message that the MBP is not supported. I might believe that as the MBP is older with Bluetooth 2+EDR and the iPhones are Bluetooth 4 although I would like to think there was some level of backward compatibility.

The iPhones cannot see each other nor can they see our two Apple TV boxes.

My wife's Samsung Galaxy A5 phone discovers everything. The two iPhones, my MBP, two Apple TV's and the Flip / Denon and can connect to everything except the two iPhones. This may be an Apple / Samsung thing of course but the Samsung will connect to the Apple TV's so I am not sure.

I have tried (on both iPhones) switching off Bluetooth and then reset the phone, reset network settings and restoring from backup. Nothing has changed on either phone.

Given this affects both iPhones and given the connectivity performance of the Samsung phone I have to assume it's an iOS 8 issue.

I want to love Apple I really do but it's hard sometimes!! :-(
 
adamhenry said:
See Supported Bluetooth profiles to understand the devices that your iPhone should connect to. Not all bluetooth devices support connections to each other.
Click to expand...

Yes I understand that but I would have thought both iPhone 6 should be able to a) make a Bluetooth connection to each other and b) make a Bluetooth connection to an Apple TV.

I would have been less shocked if neither phone connected to my Denon home surround sound system but strangely they both do.

Go figure.
 
steve1960 said:
Yes I understand that but I would have thought both iPhone 6 should be able to a) make a Bluetooth connection to each other and b) make a Bluetooth connection to an Apple TV.

I would have been less shocked if neither phone connected to my Denon home surround sound system but strangely they both do.

Go figure.
Click to expand...

What function would be facilitated by connecting two phones together? What function would you perform on an Apple TV if your iPhone connected to it? I'm guessing your Denon system is designed to stream audio from a bluetooth device so that's actually useful?
 
adamhenry said:
What function would be facilitated by connecting two phones together? What function would you perform on an Apple TV if your iPhone connected to it? I'm guessing your Denon system is designed to stream audio from a bluetooth device so that's actually useful?
Click to expand...

The point where this started was when my wife wanted to Bluetooth a photograph to me that she had taken of our daughter as I wanted to show it to people in the office today (we have done this in the past when we had Android phones). There may be other reasons for connecting two phones together, document sharing?

I didn't bother to state in my original post that neither iPhone sees our three iPads either. Again Bluetooth would be a convenient way of sharing photographs (I choose not to use iCloud its a personal preference).

Justifying why one would want to make a connection is taking focus away from the issue I think. The point is neither iPhone 6 can even see each other in discovery mode nor the two Apple TV boxes nor the three iPad's whereas a Samsung Android phone can.

If I had the luxury of at least being offered the option of pairing with some of these devices I could move to the next stage of seeing if they are Bluetooth compatible.
 
What you wanted to do is Airdrop a file from one phone to the other. That uses bluetooth but they do not pair to do it. I can't pair my 5S to my mac but I can airdrop files to it. Airdrop uses bluetooth and wifi to send files.

If you are viewing a picture, use the share icon to bring up a menu that includes airdrop. Once you select airdrop, a list of devices available for it will appear.
 
adamhenry said:
What you wanted to do is Airdrop a file from one phone to the other. That uses bluetooth but they do not pair to do it. I can't pair my 5S to my mac but I can airdrop files to it. Airdrop uses bluetooth and wifi to send files.

If you are viewing a picture, use the share icon to bring up a menu that includes airdrop. Once you select airdrop, a list of devices available for it will appear.
Click to expand...

That's great thank you and very useful I will give it a try later. I am sure there may be other work arounds for other connectivity issues partially using or avoiding Bluetooth on an iPhone.

Do I just accept Bluetooth on the iPhone is just not very good? That the implementation and support options are inferior to Android? If that's the case it's fine I can accept it nothing is perfect but if it should work I would want to find a way to make it work ;)
 
steve1960 said:
That's great thank you and very useful I will give it a try later. I am sure there may be other work arounds for other connectivity issues partially using or avoiding Bluetooth on an iPhone.

Do I just accept Bluetooth on the iPhone is just not very good? That the implementation and support options are inferior to Android? If that's the case it's fine I can accept it nothing is perfect but if it should work I would want to find a way to make it work ;)
Click to expand...

Not very good in what way? Because it doesn't connect to devices in ways it shouldn't?
 
adamhenry said:
Not very good in what way? Because it doesn't connect to devices in ways it shouldn't?
Click to expand...

My company Android phone connects to my Dell Windows laptop over Bluetooth and I can share files.

My company Android phone connects to my wife's Android phone over Bluetooth and we can share photographs.

Are they examples of ways in which a phone should not apply Bluetooth?

If the Apple iOS can't do that I will accept it and use Airdrop which may be Apple's answer to not having as comprehensive a Bluetooth offering as Android.

----------

Anyway we are off at a tangent again. The original posting asked why certain devices are not discovered by two iPhone 6.

Not whether they could pair or what could be achieved if they did.

Why are several discoverable devices not discovered by two iPhones yet they are discovered by an Android phone?

----------

I am sitting in my office now.

Samsung Galaxy S3 discovers using Bluetooth my iPhone, three company laptops and a Nexus phone.

My iPhone 6 discovers........................................nothing at all.
 
PNutts said:
This. The OP simply doesn't understand the capabilities and functionality of his iOS devices.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct, I am relatively new to using Apple products and the software. So now it's clear I cannot use Bluetooth in my iPhones in the same way I would in Android phones.

That does not make either right or wrong I guess just different. My frustrations are now dispersing based there not being a problem with the phones or the operating system the issue is with my Android based expectations.

Thanks to all for the feedback.
 
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