iPhone 16 pro Video Sound Recording Issues

Yes, it happens to me too with my new iPhone 16 Pro Max. The problem arises when recording with the Spatial Audio feature enabled, and the very important thing I’ve noticed is that the audio quality drops drastically when you tilt the phone more than 45 degrees. This is likely because in Spatial mode, it uses multiple microphones and creates a conflict. If you want to record with an external microphone (such as the DJI Mic2), you need to switch from Spatial Audio mode to stereo mode in the camera settings; otherwise, you won’t be able to record audio. This is a serious issue for a phone that costs nearly 2,000 Euros—let’s hope Apple resolves the situation immediately.

Are you recording in mono, stereo or Spatial Audio? If spatial, that’s the issue and it easily resolved by switching to one of the other two modes. If it’s not spatial, I’ll listen to it at home tonight and I’ll probably have more questions.

But listening on my iPhone it sounds like Spatial Audio that has not been mixed.

Okay mine worked for a few weeks in the stereo setting then last week it started doing the same thing again! Checked the setting and it was still in stereo. Took it to the Apple Store and everything checked out but they listened to the video and said it definitely was muffled and messed up. They told me to do a complete reinstall of the software and set up as a new phone and see if that corrects it. I did that and recorded today and it’s less muffled but still sounds bad and still gets louder then quiet. They said to come back to the Apple Store and the mic system will have to be replaced. This is so annoying! They also said multiple people have come in with the same issue.

Spatial Audio will play fine on Apple devices that support it. If you’re uploading to Facebook or something then you need to either run it through an app to mix it or disable the feature before you start recording.

Microphones are tuned more for voice and music and are designed to cut out background noise. It’s called noise cancellation. iPhone recording software is canceling out the startup and exhaust sounds. You’ll probably need to use an external microphone and recording app.

I finally fixed the audio problem!!! I had the same problem when I would record video. The audio was horrible. I have a Roland TD30 drum set,I run a 1/4 inch jack to an iRIG that puts out a headphone jack that plugs into the iPhone to record vid/audio. My iPhone 12 worked great. My new 16 pro sucks. Sounds like flange is on. So I finally fixed it!!! Turn the camera audio to STEREO, then change the FPS VIDEO QUALITY to 1080p at 120 fps. Then under ACCESSIBILITY choose AUDIO. Then turn HEADPHONE ACCOMMODATIONS OFF. Sounds amazing now!

Update:

I talked to customer support, they ran tests online and the phone was apparently fine. So I waited until I was facing the issue again, and scheduled an service appointment where they ended up replacing the phone with a new one.

This one has not presented any issues so far.

I originally posted about the garbled audio in the beginning of recordings, even when it's NOT in Spatial Audio mode. The software update two days ago seems to have fixed this problem. I am now recording videos with good audio throughout. So, if you haven't done the most recent IOS update, maybe try that

THE SOUND ON 16PRO IS AWEFUL! Sort it out apple - the reason i found for your problem was the audio was on cinematic mode turn that off and put on standard and it stops randomly distorting parts if the audio track but the problem i have is that the audio at a loud consort is recorded so quietly you can hardly hear it

I am also having audio issues when I play back videos I recorded and saved to my camera roll some have sound and some don’t and when I send the ones that don’t to another I phone user (11 pro) they are able to play the video with the sound. This is very frustrating I should have just stayed with my 11 pro. I’m also having issues with stickers used on texting I can’t save any stickers and all my old stickers didn’t transfer to my new phone.

UPDATE! Was able to fix by turning on Mono Audio saw it on Reddit post and worked!

I had similar issues with my iphone 16 pro where there was no audio in my recorded videos. For me it happened to be the vocal shortcuts that was creating an issue as they were using the microphone all the time. Try disabling any such accessibility.

It was recorded in Spatial. I didn’t realize at the time that was even a setting. I’ve since changed it to Stereo. I’m going to record the singing on Sunday again and see if it is better. I guess Spatial doesn’t handle music well? Like piano plus voices?

Since you claim to not have this problem, may I ask you to do following experiment?

In Camera Settings set sound to 'stereo' and try to shoot any video with grill microphone (left of charging port) covered with finger. Do you get muffled sound?

Thanks!

I changed to stereo audio and turned off the wind noise reduction. It seems the be working now.

just changing to stereo audio didn’t work for me. On my first iPhone so not sure, but wind reduction is a new feature for 16?

TO SOLVE:

Turn off vocal shortcuts in settings.

Then shut down and restart your phone.

should fix it.