Anyone using Bluetooth MIDI between iPad/iPhone and Mac?

Hi all

I've been using Apple's Bluetooth MIDI networking between iPad/iPhone and my MacBook Pro off and on since it was introduced (I use my iPad to control MainStage on my Mac).  However, I frequently experience issues whereby the BLE MIDI connection randomly drops out, usually at the worst possible time during gigs. The situation became so frustrating that for the past few 6 months, I've been using a cabled connection between my iPad and MacBook instead, which has worked perfectly but it's just so tedious having a cable when wireless connectivity should be possible.

I've noticed that iOS to iOS connections seem to be stable - as are Mac to Mac connections - but iOS to Mac seems to be very inconsistent.

I'd love to hear from other BLE MIDI users about your experiences.

Cheers

Gary

As an example of the flaky Apple BLE MIDI networking: I was at a gig last night and could not connect my iPad to my Mac whatsoever, regardless of which device was central or peripheral.  However, earlier yesterday I had no problems at all connecting the devices at home.  This inconsistency is simply unacceptable.

I ended up having to use a lightning cable connection which - whilst it works flawlessly - is limited due to cable length and aesthetics (i.e. it looks messy on stage).

Well, I seem to have solved this problem by buying an Airport Express and connecting both my Mac and iPad to this, and then using Network MIDI. I've always had the same connection issues when creating an ad hoc WiFi network on my Mac and connecting my iPad, but using the Airport Express WiFi to connect both devices appears to have fixed everything.

I'm not happy that I needed to buy yet another piece of equipment just to get wireless MIDI working, though. It seems to me that Apple has dropped the ball in this particular area....surely it can't be that hard to get Macs and iOS devices to communicate properly with wireless MIDI!!