Bluetooth connection issues on iPhone 16

How is it possible that they still haven't released an update to fix the Bluetooth problem? We're talking about Apple and a new iPhone. I've done everything I can think of and it doesn't work. It's frustrating.

I phoned the Apple support line and talked to a senior advisor about my Bluetooth issue. It looks like they are aware of a number of our problems and appear to be working on it. But hopefully our community feedback will help focus the issue. Regards from a new member of our community.

I can’t even get my 16 to pair with either of our 2 cars. Never ever had this problem with the 12. Paired it at least 20 times with various rental cars over the years too.

The problem isn’t it won’t connect but that it keeps stuttering when connected . If I unlock my phone while playing music to a speaker it cuts off

In my case, on the iPhone 16 Pro the bluetooth will see other devices it is paired with, but connecting will fail and require a restart of the phone to begin working again. I’ve experienced this with both my car and AirPods Pro. I tried “forget device” and pairing again with the car, and the car sees the phone and vice versa, but they are unable to complete the pairing process. On a separate occasion, the same thing happened with my AirPods, which could be seen on the phone as an option but when selected the icon spun for a few seconds then reverted to phone speaker. Restarting the phone fixed both of these cases… until it happens again.

After hours fighting with this and with tech support from Apple and Verizon, I found a fix for connecting to my car. If I start a phone call before I start my car, it will transfer to bluetooth and stay connected. So until there's a real fix, I will make a call to a dummy number right before going anywhere

I am gonna solve all your Bluetooth issues at once. I had the same issue with my iPhone 6 pro and it wouldn’t recognise many Bluetooth devices and I was about to return it to the Apple and swap it with Another phone but I figured it out the way to fix the issue. Even the Apple support didn’t know about it. so basically, Apple made the Bluetooth pairing much more difficult by putting a specific protocols for first pairing which means for each device you need to go to your devices manual and find out what is the step-by-step pairing instruction and follow that exactly as the device manual says and it will work perfectly but every device is different so you have to follow each devices individual manual instructions, if you dont have it google the model number and it will come up. For example for pairing my Sony headphone I usually turn it on and also turn on my phone bluetooth and I simply click on the name on bluetooth list but it didn't work on iPhone 16. The Sony headphone manual says turn it on and hold the power for 5 seconds when it start flashing twice at the time its ready to pair , so I followed it and it worked.

Finally got all my bluetooth devices to connect reliably. It turns out the iPhone 16 pro max was fine all along even if the transition from the previous model was not seamless as before. The fix for me was to use the Google search bar with a query such as "XXX issues with iPhone 16?" where XXX is the Bluetooth device or its app. The resulting advice worked for me but is specific to each device.

I am currently on IOS 18.1.1 and I am having the same issue with Bluetooth. I have reset network settings and I even went as far as completely wiping the phone and setting it up as new without using a back up and I'm still having Bluetooth issues, screen responsiveness issues and push notifications delay or not working at all.

Here is my question, I was an early adopter and received my phone the day it came out. Who else is early adopters and are having this or any of these issues?

I ask because I know a few people who got their 16 Pro's this past week and they are having no issues whatsoever with anything.

Which makes me wonder if it's not just software related but also could be hardware related (antennas/radios/screens) that is causing bluetooth issues, notification issues and the screen not responding to touch.

I’ve had the issue from day one. I drive truck and I have my headset I use to talk on the phone and my music play through my radio. My 13 never had an issue. Now I’ll be listening to music and go to answer the phone and it’s like it’s not even connected sometimes. Then there’s times it’ll answer the phone and mid sentence it connects to the radio and loses the headset completely. Or it’ll flip back and forth from my headset to my radio. Apple needs to fix this issue or reimburse everyone who’s bought one of these 16s. So far mines nothing but junk. Wish I would have never upgraded.

I have the same issue. Is it possible to return the phone? Is it covered by the 1 year warranty?

I agree 100%. This 16 pro max is the worst phone I have ever owned. I want my 12 pro max back. Never ever had an issue with Bluetooth on that phone. Getting ready to return this 16.

I finally got to talk to an actual human at Apple Support. He patiently walked me through every step and Bluetooth is now connecting with my hearing aids. I need an adapter and my phone should then connect with CarPlay. He connected with my phone and even had me go out to my car so he could see the set up on my camera. This happened AFTER I had already spent about an hour with both Apple and Verizon and even went down to the Verizon store. NONE of the people I interacted with had a clue how to fix the issue with Bluetooth on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Clearly it is possible to fix the problem, but it shouldn’t take a specialist at Apple and forty-five minutes on the phone to address it. I wish I could walk you through every step, but I honestly don’t remember everything I had to do. Just know that the people you get in the “chats” are not going to be much help.

It is quit disconcerting that this is an "Apple discussion page" yet no one is listening! I am not sure what the purpose if this group is? I thought at the minimum some form of response from Apple as there seems to be an apparent issue. Dear Apple, you sold us on the dream of how amazing your products are and the brilliance of your ability to connect all bluetooth devices and were shouting this from the roof tops, yet when questioned about any issues, you could hear a pin drop! "Sometimes silence is a statement."​

I have the same issue ! I spend so much money on this 16 pro max 1TB and spent 2 weeks talking to apple support as well as I did a device firmware update and still the issue persists. They estimated from the remote diagnostics that it weren’t a hardware problem. So basically I don’t know what else I should do?