Upgrade your Mac to Bluetooth 4 & Wifi 5 with a Broadcom BCM94360CD

Although this topic has been documented elsewhere, it will also be covered on Low End Mac for our readers. While bluetooth and wifi technology have since moved onto newer standards – Bluetooth 5.3 and Wifi 6 respectively, this adapter offers a pop-in replacement where the old AirPort card was. Rather than shoehorning a full-on PCIe card in the PCIe bay of a Mac Pro, or using any other sort of adapter, this one keeps things nice and tidy. Bear in mind that Wifi 5 was introduced in 2013, Bluetooth 4.0 was introduced in 2010. This upgrade is more or less intended for older Macs which were released prior to Wifi 5 and Bluetooth 4, which can also simultaneously take advantage of Colin Mistr’s patchers, or OCLP. This upgrade also gives you the ability to use Airdrop and Handoff in macOS Mojave and later, even in a 2008 Mac Pro! It is expected these features are preserved in newer versions of macOS.

Order of Antennas / best practices

When the card is flipped upside-down with the screw holes facing upward, the order in which to plug the antennas are as follows, from left to right: Antenna 2, Bluetooth, Antenna 1, and lastly, Antenna 3 is all the way on the right.
Model name of card: Broadcom BCM94360CD, can be found in 2013 Mac Pro.
Name of the adapter: AP12+6 MINI PCI Adopter F-C25AP
Note: Wifi 5 was released in Late 2013. It can be assumed the earliest version of OS X to work with this card is Mavericks 10.9.1 (13B4116), as that is what shipped with the 2013 Mac Pro.
Added 12/17/24: On a Mac Pro 4,1/5,1, you will need to connect USB to the logic board, as the mini-PCIe pinout doesn’t have USB connection. “AP12+6 MINI PCI Adopter” will need to have a 3-pin connector on it (unlike the one in below photo, scroll down to see more), and will need a cable to connect from this adapter to the logic board.

I learned a few lessons after installing a couple of these cards in my own Mac Pros.

Be patient, the connectors for the antennas are fragile, and so are the connector cables inside the Mac Pro. I almost ruined a card like this!
Don’t just try to yank the cable off, not even gently. It has to be pried off really carefully at the point of connection.

Price in 2024

The price seemingly varies depending on where and who you buy it off of. General going price for the adapter kit is $45 to $100 – we recommend not overspending! It’s actually cheaper to buy the wifi card and adapter separately.

Use the search term “mini PCI to AP12+6 adapter” on eBay for best results. Description on these items should say whether or not they’re compatible with macOS. Even if they have the 3-pin USB connector on the adapter, it should still be plug and play. Price is around $14 to $25.
General going price in late 2024 for the Broadcom card can be anywhere from $15 to $40.

(Second from above: Broadcom Wifi card. Above: Adapter card)

(Above: Screenshot from seller listing for the adapter, stating it is macOS compatible)

While Bluetooth + WIFI kits are readily available together, they are incredibly more expensive than buying the individual items alone.
On a Mac Pro 1,1-3,1, the 3-pin USB connector off of the adapter won’t need to be used. On a Mac Pro 4,1/5,1, the mini-PCIe connector on the logic board doesn’t carry USB, and the adapter you use will need to have the 3-pin USB connector, and a cable will need to be used to connect to the logic board.