I’ve been backing up my iPhone and several family iPads to my Mac weekly; followed by a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of the Mac. Which has worked fine for years, even after I put all the devices on Lockdown [don’t ask, but I’d rather not back up the devices to iCloud, either.]
After updating the M2 Mac mini MacOS to MacOS 15.3 and iPhone iOS to 18.3 on my (3rd generation) iPhone SE, when I connect the iPhone to the Mac via an Apple USB-Lightning cable, Finder on the Mac doesn’t see the iPhone. So I’m unable to back up the iPhone to the Mac.
Although I do get a tone alert, and the “Accessory Connected, Unlock iPhone to use accessories” popup as the iPhone is connected, then use Touch ID for that, the Mac Finder simply doesn’t recognized the connected iPhone.
The family iPads (various generations, all upgraded to iPadOS 18.3) are still recognized and back up to the Mac just fine.
The iPhone is still recognized by my 2024 Prius for AirPlay when I connect to it via USB cable.
Just started talking with Apple Support https://support.apple.com but so far no joy. Have no idea whether different Mac or iPhone models could have the same problem.
A possibility: macOS sometimes requires an iOS connection driver update following OS updates. A popup appears right after the iOS device is connected to the Mac. Perhaps you didn’t see or dismissed the popup.
An image of the popup is here:
I think it’s unfortunate the popup’s text is so terse and the icon is so generic; it is easy to assume the popup is something malicious.
Been with Apple Support for about 2 hours. Apparently there are other reports of the same problem (they haven’t said which Mac and/or iPhone models were involved). Now on the phone with a “senior advisor”.
Indications are that this will become a bug report, requiring an Apple MacOS and/or iOS) software upgrade …
Just got off the line with the “senior advisor”, who tole me that this issue is “in the discovery stage” with “engineering”. Promises to get back to me on Monday (apparently “engineers” are sparse on the weekend at Apple).
I have a “legacy” iMac running Mojave. For many years I have used iTunes to do encrypted backups of iPhones and iPads. I haven’t tried this since updating iOS devices to 18.3 so, after seeing your post, I have just connected my iPhone and it seems to be happily doing a manual backup after entering my passcode to “Trust this computer”. I didn’t get a driver update prompt in this case but have previously.
So this suggests to me that the problem is with macOS (Sequoia and/or device drivers).
I am guessing that, when testing software updates, not many Apple engineers do iPhone backups to Macs anymore!
While waiting for the callback from Apple Support/Engineering …
… and even then, probably not with the same combination of hardware/software/settings on Mac & iPhone that I use. Nor would beta testers – and if it didn’t work for them, they’d probably shrug it off.
Having done support in the past (tho or other companies, not Apple), this situation sure looks like a hard-to-duplicate “corner case” where a combination of hardware, software, and settings for the Mac and/or iPhone causes a “handshake” failure when the two are connected via Thunderbolt USB cable. If I had to guess, I’d bet on the problem being on the Mac side … and at some point Apple will want me to try using a new MacOS and/or iOS beta.
Mr. Cunningham, I look forward to reading the eventual resolution on this. I have long been a local backup fan and recently updated a MBAir to 15.2 and ios devices to 18.2 and luckily have not had an issue with the Mac connecting to and syncing iphone-ipads.
The iPhone frequently over several mac and i-OSes has had difficulty in updating the OS from the Finder interface. There is a Restore/Erase dead-end I keep running into when trying and none of the official solutions works. I usually end up going to an Intel MBAir on older OS and it works there.
Thanks for keeping this updated.
Many years ago I had the same problem @bob32 is having now. In my case, it was the issue that @Halfsmoke talks about: the need for a driver update. But the update wouldn’t work until I launched Xcode, then the update magically installed. So if you do have Xcode installed, then try launching it. If you don’t have it, then it’s back to the drawing board. I wouldn’t recommend installing Xcode just to maybe fix this problem, as it’s huge.
Turns out that my iPhone (SE 3rd gen, running iOS 18.3) WILL back up to my old, hardly used anymore, 2018 MacBook Pro (Intel, MacOS 15.3).
But the iPhone is still not recognized for backups on my 2023 M2 Mac Mini (also MacOS 15.3) – although several generations of iPads (running iPadOS 18.3) back up the Mac Mini just fine.
No solution to the problem from Apple Support yet – since case 102528533238 has been referred to Engineering. If anyone else – trying to back up an iPhone to a Mac – has a similar problem, please let Apple Support know.
For the time being, I’m resurrecting my 2018 MacBook Pro to use for backups so I can avoid doing won’t iPhone backups to iCloud.