Bluetooth Pairing Unsuccessful

Can’t get your Apple Bluetooth keyboard to pair with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? I couldn’t either. My A1255 keyboard wouldn’t connect at all. The iPhone would find the keyboard, but wouldn’t update the name of it, nor ever present the four digit code for pairing. I could only get this error:

Pairing Unsuccessful
Make sure “Keyboard” is turned on, in range, and is ready to pair.

I tried a bunch of fixes I read about online and none of these worked in any combination nor configuration:

1. turning Bluetooth off and on
2. rebooting the iPhone
3. holding the power button on the keyboard
4. deleting other Bluetooth device pairing from the iPhone
5. clicking ‘Forget This Device’
6. connecting to another device and then my iPhone
7. replacing the batteries
8. holding the V, A, and R keys while powering on the keyboard
9. turning off Bluetooth on any other nearby devices

It seems Bluetooth under iOS 7 is broken. Lots of people are having issues with Bluetooth on iOS 7 that weren’t there in older iOS versions. Unfortunately, Apple is apparently ignoring this problem.

The Fix

Here’s how I finally connected my keyboard to my iPhone.

1. Switch off Bluetooth on iOS device under Settings > Bluetooth.
2. Shut off the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button for 3 seconds.
3. Switch on Bluetooth on iOS device.
4. Turn on the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button until it green light blinks.
5. The keyboard should appear listed under the DEVICES heading in the iPhone Bluetooth settings screen with “Not Paired” in gray next to it.
6. Now at this point you’re supposed to just tap on the listed device on the iPhone to begin the pairing process, but when I would do that it would time out with the “Pairing Unsuccessful” alert. Here’s the trick: repeatedly tap on the listing (maybe 5-6 times) and hopefully the “Bluetooth Pairing Request” alert will appear with the four digit code you’ll need to enter.
7. The pairing may fail the first time. Try again.
8. I also found that subsequent attempts to connect after forgetting the device worked much better after that initial connection.

I hope this fix works for you. Let me know if it does.