iPhone 4/iOS 4 bluetooth muffled on other end

i upgraded both of my q2's to 1.1 and iphone to 4.2. after a couple days it is worse than with original q2 software and 4.1

I have the same problem with Plantronics 925 as well as with Jawbone Prime. I returned the phone and got another one. I also opened a case with Apple but Apple was adament that this is not a known issue but something unique to me. Blaming the blluetooth headsets (which worked fine with my HTC Tilt2).

But here is some consolation. I switched to my old original Jawbone (the first model) and that seems to have eliminated my problem. Iphone 4 in other words is very compatible with Jawbone 1.

I think it is working fine with Jawbone 1 because it is easy to do a hard reset by pressing the Noise cancelling button with the ear clip.

I just did a hard reset of Jawbone Prime (steps below - you will have do do it in quick succession) and tested, the muffling is not there but too early to tell - need to try it out for the whole day.

To hard reset the JB Prime, unpair it on iPhone 4, turn JB Prime on, and press in quick succession as below. If done properly, this will put the JB Prime in pairing mode. Once in pairing mode, pair it back on iphone 4 and try the sound quality.

Noise Assassin
Talk
Talk
Noise Assassin
Talk
Talk

I too have an iPhone 4 and a Jawbone ICON and am having dropped bluetooth connections and muffled sound. I am running IOS 4.2.1 and have tried a settings reset to no avail. the strange thing about my problem is that just after pairing the device or reseting the settings and repairing I have great connectivity which slowly degrades to an unusable point about a day later. I have replaced my jawbone once with no effect. I have just completed a factory restore of my device and am running it without restoring any of my settings, pics, music, or apps for a while just to see if that has an effect. I will let you all know if it worked.

@MCLanders - Please keep us posted on your progress. I've got a Jawbone Prime/iPhone 4 (iOS 4.2.1) and have had issues from day one since I upgraded from my 3GS. Like everyone here, things are better after a Jawbone reset/repair for a while, but the quality degrades. Performance seems to be worse in an environment where there is a lot of WiFi traffic (clicks/pops on incoming audio).

During a GeniusBar visit on Friday (4th one for this BT issue, I've had 3 iPhone4 handsets all with same problem), the tech noted from Apple's internal iPhone4 test program that the "BTServer" process in iOS is reporting frequent crashes. He says this is the process that handles all BT connections, recommended a factory restore w/o using the backup option. I'm hesitant to do so due to the work and losing SMS history. But I'm willing to try if your results are positive. Thanks in advance!

Well after about one day it started misbehaving on me again. I just got off the phone with apple tech support and they confirmed to me that apple is aware of a bluetooth bug in IOS 4 and are working on it for the next release. She even went so far as to say that the symptoms I was describing (which you can read about in my previous post) are identical to the issue the engineers are investigating right now so hopefully we will have a fix for at least those that have similar symptoms to me.

I too am suffering from glitches with 2 different blue-tooth headsets (Jawbone II) & Plantronics Explorer 210. Theses glitches range from poor audio quality to intermittent connectivity to the headset. Sounds great on my end but callers tell me that my voice is so poor that they can't understand half of what I am saying. Most describe it as a very bad connection, far away, garble, or as if in a digital tunnel. Using same Jawbone I never had a problem with my iPhone 3G. Only tried my girlfriends Plantronics headset to see if my headset was the problem or the iPhone 4 itself. What annoys me the most is Apple/iphone support acting as if this is unusual yet, I jump on the internet and see, on the contrary, that this is quite prevalent. Nevertheless, Apple support tells me to take it in and I will have to use a rent-a-phone. Excuse me! This is a joke. Anyway, FYI I did a restore (not from back-up) and issue still unresolved. More later.

I did exactly what you did.Home+Power, i.e., soft reset works for 3-4 hours then the bluetooth connection quality slowly degrades as you said.

The Bluetooth devices I tried with iphone 4(on ios4.2.1, 4.1, 4.01):Sony Vaio W series Notebook, Jabra BT8040, Jabra Extreme, Samsung WEP 870, GE Cell Fusion Gateway, Jawbone Icon, Thinkgeek Retro Bluetooth Handset. These bluetooth devices all fail at some point of your daily use either muffled sound or break-ups on connections. The issue is not limited to headsets, speakers, or computer bluetooth connections. All above were all working fine with iphone 3g on ios 3.x.

COME ON APPLE, IF IT IS A HARDWARE ISSUE ADMIT IT. IF IT IS A SOFTWARE ISSUE, THEN ROLL OUT THE UPDATE ASAP BY ADDRESSING CLEARLY TO THE ISSUE.

Experienced the same issues as everyone else - no problems using BT on the original iPhone or the 3G, but the 4 made using the Prime 2, BlueAnt T1 and Voyager Pro unacceptable because of connection issues, the need to hold the phone next to the headset to maintain signal, muffled sound, etc.

Just tried a Sony VH110, a new very basic model from Sony, and have had zero issues with it. It's been more than a week and I'm on the headset a good 7-9 hours a day during the week (it says it lasts 10 hours of talk time, which I haven't gotten to yet). No drop-outs, I can walk away from the phone more than 3 feet without loosing service and no muffled sound issues (well it did occur once, but was caused by poor cell service, as the call failed shortly after the complaint that it was muffled).

Not sure why the Sony headset works, when others don't, but I've gone from hating the iPhone because of the BT issues to again enjoying using it.

MacGyver, I just spent 30 minutes looking for a site I can buy a VH110 from. Zero, nada, zilche. Not even Sony's website has a buy-link that works. WHat outlet did you get your from?

Thanks.

ok same old story here, bought my iphone 4 6mnts ago, unfortunately i had to exchange it because it kept on freezing. got the replacement and now i experience the bluetooth problem. i have changed the bluetooth device 3 times already and still range and muffle sound problem. phone is on 4.1 right now, i called apple to see what they have to say about it, they told me to do a soft restart (Hold Power and home button for 10 sec) and update to 4.2, i'm afraid to update to 4.2 after what i have read here. my question is; HAVE ANY OF YOU GUYS HAD YOUR IPHONE REPLACE LATELY FOR SAME PROBLEM? IF YES, DID THE NEW IPHONE WORKED BETTER? because if it's not going to do any difference by exchanging it, i'll just hold down to my current. Thanks

I'm starting to wonder if the reason that "basic" headsets (like the Sony VH110) work while more "fancy" headsets such as the Jawbone, Plantronics, Jabra, etc fail is because more "basic" headsets are using Bluetooth v1.2 standard and the new ones are Bluetooth 2.1 (+EDR). Perhaps the Apple software is having problems with compatibility with the newer Bluetooth standard...Again, it would be REALLY GREAT if Apple could just tell us they're working on the problem but rarely do the perfect admit their failures.

Austin335, I was also thinking v1.2 might be simpler for the iPhone to digest. Then I bought a cheapie Motorola H500, which is v1.2. Same thing happened as with my Jawbone: nice clarity for maybe the first 3-4 calls after new pairing, then it goes in the toilet, garbled transmit, then they cannot understand me at all.

Apple, the fact that you are pretending this is not your problem just blows my mind. Some crap corporate lawyer is telling you to hide in the closet. The problem with that strategy is sooner or later somebody will come out with a true iPhone killer and you will lose many of us just because you ****** us off so. Think about it. Blackberry ruled the planet for years and crammed outrageous integration fees down company IT departments. Now look where they are: giving phones away.

Wake up Apple. You are better than this. Or at least you should be.

Eduardito - to answer your question - I have taken my iPhone 4 in twice to have it replaced to see if things would improve. Both times, bluetooth worked great for a few days and the the issues reappeared just as before. I already felt, as has been pointed out many times on this forum, that this is a software issue and not a hardware issue but I just couldn't help myself from trading in the phone as I am so desperate for a fix.