Bluetooth Calls on iPhone 13 Pro Sound Poor After A Few Minutes

tldr, I had the same problem, turning off my old Apple Watch seems to have fixed it.

I had an iPhone X that I used with AirPods and Bluetooth sound in my car. I listened to music, podcasts and made calls with that setup without trouble.

I got an iPhone 13 Pro and kept the same setup from my old phone with the same usage pattern, and noticed occasional bursts of static lasting several seconds on both my Bluetooth setups. I read this forum thread and turned off my old Apple Watch several weeks ago, and the problem seems completely gone.

One interesting thing is, I never wore the watch. It just sat at home on its charger.

I would ask to have your issue escalated like I did. Also ask to have a dedicated support specialist, so you can send direct emails and leave voicemails.

I have AT&T and they have stated this is not a problem on their end, which they are correct.

It’s a bug between Bluetooth and the iOS Phone app. The issue does not occur when using old school plug in headphones, only on Bluetooth. If it was a provider issue, I feel like it would happen on hardwire headphones. I’d give you my case #, but not sure if that is safe to do or not.

I had this exact problem. After at least 15-20 hours on the phone with Apple senior technicians and them sending me to Verizon I finally figured out it was my Series 2 watch. It is not compatible. If I turned the watch off the problem stopped and when I turned the watch back on it started. I finally went and bought a new watch and now everything is fine. Would have been nice to know that

Following up for everyone’s visibility. I have kept my Series 2 watch off since March 2nd and have not once had the audio issue happen since then.

So, if you’re using a Series 2 and also have these issues, time to get a new watch.

If you have an Apple Watch series 2 or 3 that is likely the problem, at least it was for me. Try turning your watch off and see if the problem stops. If it does, time to buy a new watch. I think Apple should replace the watch but they refused in my case saying that they are very transparent about the fact that the older watches are not compatible with the new phone and I said if that’s true why doesn’t my senior advisor know anything about it and I was not told when I bought the phone

I had exactly the same issue. You were right! Turning off my iWatch2 fixed the issue. I now got in a habit of turning off the iWatch when I am on the call and turning it back on when I am done. I no longer have any issues. I refuse to buy a new watch at full price now. Thank you for your recommendation.

Did you try turning the watch off? I unpaired mine too and reconnected it but the problem persisted. It only stopped when I turned the watch off

Guys this issue has nothing to do with calls specifically. It has to do with Bluetooth transmission between external device mic (like earbuds, or car mic) and iPhone.

I tried 5 different devices. All of them give me same poor voice recordings.

Devices I tried:

Sony wf-1000xm4

Soundcore liberty air 2 pro

Jabra elite 7 pro

Jabra elite 75t

Anker soundcore boost

With all devices the voice recording are extremely poor, dull and low in volume.

I tried a colleagues' iPhone 13 pro and another ones iPhone 12 and an iPhone 8. Same result.

Then I tried the same test on a Samsung Galaxy s10 5G and the voice recording came out crystal clear.

I guess nobody mentioned it before, because most people would think it's normal this way. But only if you compare the 2 recordings side by side you notice There's a huge problem with the iPhone Bluetooth mic recordings.

Seems like the Bitrate ist very low when you record voice messages over Bluetooth devices.

I'm on iOS 15.3 but noticed it right from the start of purchasing the phone.

I’ve posted a bunch of updates in this thread… been working with dedicated advisor for about 2 months, reset phone, replaced phone. Issue still occurs.

Apple collected Bluetooth logs almost 2 months ago- still no feedback or updates from apple. I checked in again with my advisor today, who said “engineers are still working on the issue”. My advisor then asked to collect new and “fresh” Bluetooth logs and I told him no since I spent hours trying (and finally successfully) to replicate the issue during the advanced logging Apple did on my phone in late December.

I Told them I’m not investing any more time without some sort of progress on their end. It’s their turn to provide feedback, since they hold the logs I captured that should identify the OS bug related to Bluetooth and the Phone app. I have had this case opened for almost 4 months now and this issue still occurs almost on a daily basis.

Everyone please be persistent with Apple when it comes to them fixing this bug. It is their fault, not yours or your cell providers fault. I have tried everything. There is nothing you can do to fix it until they release an OS update that addresses it.

A higher tiered Apple Advisor saw my posts on here, reached out to me and took ownership of my case from my previous advisor about 2 weeks ago.

they re-installed a Bluetooth logging profile again on my phone and I was able to capture and log the issue again early last week and submitted the logs to Apple for engineers to review. I also provided an audio clip of the interference/scrambling noise I had recorded per their request.

Apple has communicated to me there is no current fix for this, as it can only be resolved with a fix in a future OS update. They have made it clear to me that there have been numerous Bluetooth problems (different from this) with the latest iPhones.

my Latest dedicated advisor seems much more attentive and dedicated to resolving this bug compared to my last advisor who never provided updates. Hopefully I have good feedback from him in the next week or so.

This will likely be my final post on here. As I noted earlier in March, I ended up turning my Apple Watch off for 3 weeks- never had the call interference noises. This Wednesday, I decided to turn my watch back on so I could use it while in all-day work meetings. Immediately on my way driving in to work the scrambling interference noises returned within 5 minutes of making a phone call via Bluetooth in my car.

This is 100% being caused by my Series 2 Apple Watch and some sort of limited functionality with the iPhone 13 Pro.

The thing that makes me most mad is that my Apple advisor, who seemed committed to helping me, has ghosted me and has not responded to my last 3 emails to him over the last 3 weeks.

I’ve been struggling with poor sound quality (garbled while on phone calls) for five months. I upgraded from an iPhone 8 to a 13 Pro in January. My AirPods were periodically garbled, but they were old, so I purchased a set of Pros.

Fast forward to now:

I’ve had my 13 rebuilt (all new hardware) at the Genius Bar.

Two new 13’s from Verizon under my warranty.

A new set of AirPod Pros including a charger.

Last week I purchased an iPhone 12 running the latest IOS and I continue with the same issues.

Two weeks ago I reconnected my iPhone 8 for a week and didn’t have any issues with my AirPods.

I’ve talked to several techs at Apple (both on the phone and at their Genius Bar) and in-person at the Geek Squad with no luck.

I believe it is a software issue that Apple hasn’t acknowledged.

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. We understand your iPhone is not working well with your Bluetooth headphones. We'll be happy to help.

Let's start with these steps: If the sound from your wireless headphones cuts out or is distorted. Test another set of headphones or a speaker. Let us know if the behavior continues.

Best regards.

I pressed Apple today for some sort of update or feedback related to this issue and my case. I wanted at least acknowledgment that this is a bug and not some one-off issue. They have had the logs I submitted to them for almost a week and I haven’t heard anything back.

My advisor responded back stating that they have received multiple reports of this issue and engineers are investigating. I did not get any ETA on when I’d get feedback or next steps.

I've got exactly same issue on my 12ProMax and 13Pro, it's not matter I use aipods 2nd or 3rd or one of my cars the sound quality is poor also unexpected disconnection from car's bluetooth is present.

Erasing phones data&settings will not fix anything, this is software issue.