Mac OS, Bluetooth

Bluetooth is brilliant. So is Mac, so is wi-fi. Three brilliant things at once sometimes don't work together. Like geniuses stepping on each other's toes. The answers to connectivity questions suggest things like "uninstall and reinstall Bluetooth." That's stupid. With Mac, there is no such thing as that, it's built into the system. They say, disconnect devices then reconnect, they say turn off Bluetooth then back on, they say shut down the computer and restart. They say reboot. They say reinstall the whole system. They say enter code into the registry. None of this is good.

Sometimes the devices find each other but do not connect, or devices do find each other and do connect but do not stay connected. Sometimes they stay connected but nothing can happen between them. Bluetooth shows it's aware of other devices but does not offer the "send file" option. The connection is there but nothing can happen so the connection is dropped.

Mac operating system have a Bluetooth area in their Mac preference panel, along with another area for network. There is a third area named "Sharing." Nothing can happen until the user goes into the area and turns on the sharing for Bluetooth. There is a list of things that can be shared. Simply check Bluetooth, zoom, your devices now share, and boy, they share brilliantly.

See how brilliant? Mac is trying to protect you from the shear brilliance of Bluetooth. It offers the ability to connect brilliantly then shuts it off with a switch. So that it doesn't go sharing all your stuff all over the place without you knowing it can even do that. They're building in layers of security. For you! But you must be a bit brilliant too, to go looking for switches in places not marked Bluetooth and not marked network. Like a computer game, the key is tucked into a place named "Sharing."