[MikeElmendorf]

I have been having a horrible usability experience with the personal hotspot on my Verizon iPhone 5 ever since I got it. It will maintain a connection for only a few minutes with my iPad. After the connection is broken, the iPhone no longer shows up as visible on the iPad and I have to cycle the hotspot on and off (sometimes more than once) on the iPhone before it connects again....only to repeat the whole process again when the connection fails in a few minutes.

Verizon and Apple have been no help, and doing searches indicate that this problem is not unique to me.

However, someone suggested that pairing the iPhone and iPad via Bluetooth resulted in a better experience. So, yesterday I started trying to do that. No matter which device I used to initiate the pairing, it wouldn't work. It would give me the passcode on the first device, but I'd never be prompted for it on the second and the "searching" spinner would just keep going and going. Today, the iPhone and iPad don't even see each other in Bluetooth even though they are both discoverable, despite cycling both on and off several times, restarting, and even resetting network settings.

Any ideas out there?

Thanks!

[jsntrenkler]

I have found this to be a problem for the last several years. For whatever reason the hotspot on iPhone or my AT&T iPad 3 has issues connecting or staying connected to other apple devices. Never had this problem when using a hotspot feature from another platform. What has solved it for me is to pair the two devices via Bluetooth. Plenty of bandwidth for solid browsing and it's much better on the battery from my experience.

[MikeElmendorf]

Thanks for the reply. I've been trying to pair them via Bluetooth but it won't work. At first the iPhone and iPad would see each other but not complete the pairing. Now they don't even see each other. The geniuses at Apple tech support tell me they can't be paired via Bluetooth, which I know is wrong. Any advice there?

[Bazza1]

Oh good - it's not just me then.



Same procedure as above with same results. After initially seeing each other and trading passcode, I've yet to connect or even replicate it. My iPhone and iPad can be sitting next to each other - both discoverable - and neither see each other.

And now you report that one of the Apple Geni tells you they can't be paired? Fairly pointless having 'Personal Hotspot' software then, isn't it? Or maybe it only works with a competitor's tablet...? Worth remembering.

[MikeElmendorf]

Definitely not just you.

Not only did they tell me that they can't be paired, but they also told me the personal hotspot is designed to work as I'm experiencing (i.e., staying connected only for a few minutes). Oddly, my laptop (Windows) connects and stays connected just fine.

My experience with them on this issue was astoundingly bad and they were remarkably unhelpful. It is disappointing, since I had an issue on initial setup and the person I spoke to was terrific. Luck of the draw, I guess.

Definitely seems to be an issue here--hopefully a software issue, not a hardware issue.

[jsntrenkler]

Been a issue since iOS 4.0 not sure they care to fix it. Sorry if I was wrong about Bluetooth pairing between iOS devices, I do however use Bluetooth pairing between my MacBook Pro and iPhone 5 as my iPad has a cellular radio.