Two iMac Frustrations....well, maybe three

Software
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1

I have a high-spec late 2020 iMac. I am very happy with it and see no need to change in the immediate future. Most things work spectacularly well from short notes to long FCP movies.
However, I have two or three frustrations that I cannot resolve. I am using the same settings as my late 2015 MacBook Pro but two features simply do not work on my iMac, and one is intermittent:

  • Air Drop simply does not work on the iMac.
  • Find My does not work on the iMac but works on all my other Apple devices.
  • Universal Control works with my iPad when first starting-up, but after a while loses connection and will not reconnect.

I should be grateful if anyone has any simple solutions I can test.

2

It’s ridiculous, but I don’t believe Find My works on desktop Mac devices. I vaguely recall overhearing it on a podcast and my mac mini isn’t showing on my own find my app.

3

Right. Desktop meaning non-laptop or non-portable. I suppose the thinking is that as they are not mobile devices, you would never need to know where they are as they don’t move. Not sure how that helps recover from theft though.

Regarding Universal Control, it has always been spotty. For me it works most of the time when I need it (which admittedly is not very often), but occasionally will refuse to connect without a restart on one or both devices. If you search here you will find multiple previous discussions with many similar complaints. Don’t recall ever seeing anyone state that they found a reliable method to reconnect.

4

Sorry, can’t help with solutions, but I have all 3 working on my M1 iMac.
I have had problems on my M1 MBA though, including
[edit: scrap this next bit, Find My had been turned off…oops…] Find My not working at the moment (in fact, that bugs me because it doesn’t show up anywhere, except I get alerts on my phone that I left it behind, which I can’t turn off because it doesn’t show up anywhere…)

5

I think that Air Drop requires WiFi and Bluetooth to both be on, so if you have your Mac Wired via Ethernet and have disables either of the above, switch them on. I don’t think the WiFi needs to be connected to a network, just on. The devices create an ad hoc WIFI network between them while transferring data.

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