IPhone 4 Bluetooth Issues

Hello Tom,

Welcome to Apple discussions. Unfortunatelly, this is a forum where users help each other; you're not going to get any help from an Apple employee through here. Your best chance is to get to an Apple store and get someone in the Genious Bar help you, although I doubt they would be of any help. It's a hit or miss issue however, and the situation could get a little bit better with another iPhone. However, don't get your hopes too high, even if the issue goes away initially, it will come back after a couple of hours on the Bluetooth tether.

Regarding your report about even worse quality when near a working microwave oven, I would say this is expected and would excuse the iPhone for that matter, since microwave ovens emmit EM radiation in the same spectrum as wifi of Bluetooth. That reminds me of a test I did a while ago: knowing the microwave ovens have EM shielding (so as not much radiation exits the device), I put my old SE phone into the oven (oven switched off of course) and did a test call through Bluetooth. Conversation went fine. Did the same test with my first iPhone, an iPhone 3G and the connection would drop as soon as I closed the oven door. Jump to any conclusion you like...

Thanks for your response, Thanar. I didn't expect that an Apple person would be on the forum. I was merely pointing out that based on previous posts in this thread, Apple is not acknowledging that there is a problem. I like others here are hoping that someone has figured this out.

Bottom line is that if the iPhone4s has an inferior bluetooth capability (and nearly unusable as far as I can tell), that's a showstopper for me. I'm not going to pay a premium price for a phone that can't even do a very basic phone function. All the gadgets and coolness don't overcome a significant and basic phone flaw. So are you telling me that in your opinion, what I'm experiencing is what an iPhone can deliver in terms of bluetooth? If so, that's pretty pathetic on the part of Apple.

Re the microwave, I figured someone would bring up the obvious and so was careful to state that this was not an issue with the same bluetooth device and the same microwave, most recently just days ago. The only thing that has changed is that the connection is to the iPhone rather than my old Blackberry. Given the range problems, the microwave interference sounds like a symptom of the same problem ... a very weak connection. That was why I included it as another data point.

It wouldn't matter Tom you wouldn't get any help from an apple employee anyway. (Because there is no issue with the Iphone) "they're sooooooo wonderful an pretty why don't you like them?"

They just want to make me puke. It's like invasion of the body snatchers when you bring up issues with their hardware.

I only came to this forum for maybe a hack or work around from people who aren't in denial.

Update on testing with my new Blueant V1x (iPhone 4, iOS 5.01):

Call quality - continues to be 'acceptable'. Not garbed for those on the other end. But certainly not on par with my Jawbone Era on my old iPhone 3, but 'acceptable'.

Range - this is another matter. I can put my phone down on my desk, walk out of my office out into our warehouse, easily 25-30 meters, including steel racking and drywall separating me from the iPhone. On par with any BT performance I've ever had. Happy camper.

'Microwave oven' test - interesting test. I can put the iPhone in the microwave, close the door, and the headset stays connected, no problem. If I try to make a call and then put the iPhone into the microwave, as soon as I close the door the call drops. Yeah, the microwave oven test isn't necessarily real-world conditions but it does highlight that the frequency of the BT signal isn't shielded whereas obviously the GSM signal is.

What is so interesting is that there is such a wide variation in performance from otherwise identical headsets. Some say their Jawbone Era's work well (mine won't). Some say the Blueants don't work for their iPhones, some say theirs do.

Nuts.

It's ashame that Apple doesn't care.

I've used the Era for several weeks now and it does just fine in the car and home. I'm assuming it would do equally well in an office. On two occassions I've used it in windy environments and people had trouble hearing me, so the "noise assassin" software did not perform as well as advertised. But for car, home or normal work use the Era should be fine. It connects well and stays connected with a good usable range of 20 to 30 feet (or a little more), including on the other side of a wall. Much better than the four other BT's I tried.

Hope this helps.

Thats all right now how ever bluetooth isnt working now 100percent for me i have the i phone 4 also and the only time i see the bluetooth icon on the phone is when i'm in the settings and bluetooth button i turned it off and on i only see it just tn that screen apple needs to fix this bug asap

More detail from my earlier post: I have a 4S with iOS 5.0.1 on Verizon. My issue is the poor sound quality (garble) that is heard by the person I am talking to when using a Bluetooth headset (which is supposed to be the purpose of this post). I am a longtime BlackBerry user that made the switch to iPhone 2 months ago (I'm not sure the iPhone is a great phone for mainly email and phone usage). I purchased an iPhone at Best Buy within a week of being released to try it out. I used my old Plantronics Discovery 975 with it and the listener said sound quality was almost as good as a landline. I returned that phone, since we were going to buy through corporate account through Verizon. When the new phone came in (it now had 5.0.1 on it), my Discovery had horrible sound (unusable) to the listener. I tried it on 2 different 4S phones we have in the office, and while they were better, they still sounded very poor. I tried on even older Nokia on my phone, which was better than the Discovery, but still poor. I then bought a Jawbone Era and a Voyager Pro HD to test. The Era sounded very bad to the listener. The big HD sounded excellent, actually better than when I talked directly on the iPhone, but not as good as a landline. Since then, I am in the north woods on vacation, so haven't used as much, but now they say quality is still pretty good, but not as good (have no idea if it could be something to do with this network, but they say quality was now the same between using iPhone directly or the HD). I just left a voicemail message for me at work (I hadnt tried that before, so cant compare to how it was) using the HD and on playback, I thought it sounded very good. I get about 25' of range.

ilbanker, I'm gonna write my experience once again, since as I've seen you don't seem to have read my earlier posts... No matter WHAT Bluetooth headset you are using, the garble become even more noticeable to the other party IF HE or HER is in a noisy environment. That is, if you talk to your friend over the headset and he's at home, chilling, he'll hear you OK. If you talk to him again and he's downtown, you'll hear him saying that he can't hear you at all!

Thanar, Actually, my phone is almost exclusively used for business purposes, so everyone is almost always in a quiet office environment, even though I am either in a car or quiet room. So, all of my tests and usages have been consistent, with horrible to great sound quality, with all in the same quiet office environment and mostly to the same person. I have not tried noisy environments, but my point is that these are the results in a consistant environment and there are definately issues.

Here's my update. This is a very strange phone, at least so far. Per my earlier posts, I was having a horrible time with range and quality. I did a full shutdown of my phone last night and noticed afterwards that my bluetooth was working better than ever. I discovered this when I received a call and was a floor away from my phone. Bluetooth picked right up. Haven't checked this AM and can't relate call quality as yet (I didn't end up talking to the caller last night), but it would appear that something changed that fixed the range issue. I have read in other posts that resetting can temporarily right these problems, so we'll see if it lasts. But yet another data point.

Thanar, I must say I can't understand your post, just doesn't make sense to me. Yes, if the person is in a noisy place, it is harder to hear, but if you are saying the garbled is merely the perception on the part of the listener, you are mistaken. I recorded voicemail yesterday and it was horrible. I was standing in my kitchen. Also I've been using a bluetooth device for more than two years. Where the person i'm calling is located has nothing whatsoever to do with the performance of my bluetooth. Yes, if it is noisy they can't hear me, but that's no different whether I use the phone or bluetooth. I really don't understand your point.

Tom, let me explain my thesis once again... I started having issue with my Bluetooth headsets beck when I owned an iPhone 3G with some ancient software I can't remember. After some software update from Apple, people started complaining that they could not hear me well. I did some tests, by calling myself to my landline and found out that the iPhone when talking through Bluetooth headset was NOT operating in full-duplex mode.

That is, if you call yourself on the landline, pick the corded up and place both to your head and start talking, you'll notice that yourself on the landline gets cut-off, hence the garbled sound. If you cover your landline with your hand, you'll be hearing yourself on the landline just fine.

Another more technical way to explain it: Apple was having issues with its own Bluetooth headset, there was lots of echo when it was first launched. The person you were talking to, was hearing himself back. That was happening because Apple's Bluetooth headset was so small and badly engineered that it's microphone was actually capturing the voice from its speaker and sending it back to the other party. What did Apple do to face it? They added some echo cancellation software on the iPhone that "muted" the headset's speaker whenever there was input from the other side of the line. That killed the echo issues but also damaged the full-duplex of the conversation.

That's the best way I can describe my point of view. This also explains why the issue goes away after an iPhone restart and comes back after a while: the DSP software that manages the echo cancellation on the IPhone starts over-behaving and cuts more and more sound in the process.

I just "upgraded" from iPhone 3 to 4S. With my 3 I had been using Plantronics Voyager Pro with good results. With the 4S, though, I am experiencing the audio problems described in this string of 500+ posts. Last week I talked with both Apple and Plantronics support, went through the same restart/reset protocols described above. The problem seemed to go away for a brief period of time, but came back within 5 minutes or so.

I have not received reports of people not being able to hear me, but it's very difficult for me to hear them. Thanar's most recent post makes the most sense to me about what I'm hearing--a cutting, rythmic sound from my headset.

Plantronic support took me through the same protocol, then told me the problem was probably my 2 year old headset. Yesterday I bought the new Plantronics Voyager Pro HD/R, HDST, US. Same problem.

This is very frustrating, especially since Apple and Plantronics both seem to be in denial.

Does anyone know of a Bluetooth model that DOES work with iPhone 4S?

Thanks. Misery loves company.

Exact same problems here. Iphone4s (OS 5.0.1) paired with Motorola H690 headset. The Bluetooth headset has been a champ on every other phone I've tried (HTC Fuze, PalmPre, Motorla Razr, and more) but apparently the iPhone4S hates it.

I've called my home line and left test messages comparing talking while on Bluetooth, handset, and speaker phone. So far speaker phone is winning for general sound quality. The Bluetooth is so bad I can't even understand what I was saying. Moving headset closer to Bluetooth helps, but it's still only barely intelligible.

Since this doesn't appear to be a issue Apple will acknowledge, does anyone know of a headset that functions accepptably with the iPhone4S?

After giving up up on a previously stellar Jawbone Era I asked the same question you ask. Several on the forum recommended decent performance from a couple of Blueant headsets.

I ordered a Blueant V1x and it arrived this past Tuesday. When I paired it up I got decent results with my iCan't 4, running iOuch 5.01. My callers report ok quality, no muffled sounds as before, it just sounds like I'm talking on a speakerphone. Certainly not in the same league as a Jawbone Era on a pre-iOS 4.0 iPhone, but acceptable.

I've been hammering it everyday since I got it, with everything I can think of to get it to go to the muffled sounds I was getting with my other headsets. But so far, after 5 days of use it's staying in there. Blueant's website recommends you reboot the iCan't at least once a day and minimize the number of open Apps you have running. I did early tests when I first got it and could not tell any degradation from having 6-7 apps open, but I have been doing a reboot every morning (I leave the phone on overnight, as an alarm clock).

According to the Blueant website, their view is that the various iPhone BT problems are related to how apple has designed their iPhone multitasking algorithms. Interesting.

Anyway, so far so good for the Blueant V1x.

Thanks for the postings, nucsub and garrettfromsunnyvale. Nice to know I'm not crazy. Very disappointed that Apple is ignoring this problem. When I called support it was like they had never heard of the problem. Not good service from a company that is supposed to be different.

I guess I'll try the wired earbuds for a while--or just use speaker more. I don't like talking to someone who is on speaker, so I hesitate to subject my callers to it.

I'm not going to spend any more money on headsets until the problem is resolved.