3 settings can provide a solution to this issue on Ventura:
- on iPhone/settings:
- airplay -> handoff -> camera continuity (turn it off)
- phone -> calls on other devices (turn it off)
- on MacBook/system settings
- Sound -> Input -> delete iPhone from the list. Note that your iPhone will not appear in this list if camera continuity has been turned off on the iPhone.
Another option if the above does not work:
- on MacBook/system settings
- security and privacy
- uncheck all the apps that access your microphone. The next time you use the apps it will force them to reset to use the internal microphone.
The way the camera continuity “feature” “works” is through your AppleID and Bluetooth. So, turning off Bluetooth during video calls on the Macbook is another option, albeit inconvenient. A combination of all these things worked for me when I ran Ventura. The big problem came after I upgraded to Sonoma. On Sonoma, I can be on a video call, and suddenly, the person on the other side cannot hear me. I then get this error in a popup box on my Macbook: “Audio Disconnected: ‘My iPhone’ microphone is not available.” So frustrating! Apple is stealing my mic even when it knows it can’t connect to it!
I’ve had 3 different calls with Apple about this, and the last thing they told me was to reproduce it with Facetime since Facetime is an Apple app. If I can’t reproduce the behavior with Facetime, it would indicate that the third-party applications have not yet updated to the changes in Sonoma. That is a pretty frustrating answer since if the third-party app behaved correctly with “camera continuity” turned off on Ventura, one could reasonably expect it to behave similarly with Sonoma.
It's hard to imagine the use case for a "feature" that cuts off voice sound in the middle of a video conference call. Apparently this "feature" is created for people who have Mac Minis or are influencers or others who need the extra resolution of the iphone camera and don't want to manually move to it. If you would like to let Apple know how frustrating this behavior is for the rest of us, here is the link to give feedback to Apple: Product Feedback - Apple
