This is an incredibly specific and frustrating bug, but you have done some excellent troubleshooting to narrow it down. The fact that it only happens with Podcasts + AirPods Pro (Gen 2/3) + Screen Off, and completely clears up the moment you wake the display, points directly to an iOS background processing or Bluetooth power-saving glitch rather than a hardware defect with your AirPods.
When your iPhone or iPad screen turns off, iOS shifts into a low-power background state. Because podcasts are compressed differently than music (often using a lower bit rate or mono audio tracks), the combination of a low-power CPU state, background Bluetooth audio streaming, and the H2 chip's advanced audio processing (like Spatial Audio or Conversation Awareness) is causing a buffer underrun—resulting in crackling, distortion, and eventual dropouts.
Since this issue persists across multiple devices (iPhone and iPad), here are the most effective ways to bypass or fix this background audio glitch:
1. Disable "Spatial Audio" for Podcasts
The H2 chip in the AirPods Pro dynamically tracks head movement and processes spatial audio, which requires a lot of active data processing. When the screen goes off, the background processing might be choking on podcast files.
- While listening to a podcast with your AirPods Pro in, swipe down from the top right of your screen to open the Control Center.
- Long-press on the Volume Slider.
- Tap Spatial Audio (or Spatialize Stereo) and turn it Off. Test to see if the crackling stops when the screen locks.
2. Turn Off "Attention Aware" Features
Your iPhone 12 mini uses the TrueDepth camera to check if you are looking at the screen. Sometimes, the phone mismanages Bluetooth audio performance when it transitions from seeing your face to entering a deep-sleep "screen off" mode.
- Go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and toggle OFF Attention Aware Features.
3. Exclude the Podcasts App from Background Restrictions
If iOS is aggressively trying to save battery when the screen is off, it might be throttling the data stream to the Apple Podcasts app.
- Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
- Ensure Background App Refresh is turned on, and verify that Podcasts is toggled ON in the list below.
4. Change the Audio Output / Download Quality
Streamed podcasts are highly compressed and susceptible to buffer issues when network cards throttle down during sleep mode.
- Go to Settings > Podcasts.
- Scroll down to Downloads and ensure you are downloading episodes over Wi-Fi ahead of time rather than streaming them live. Playing a local file gives the background CPU less work to do.
5. Test a Third-Party Podcast App (To Isolate the Bug)
To prove whether this is an Apple Podcasts app optimization bug or a deeper iOS Bluetooth stack issue, try downloading a free third-party app like Overcast or Spotify.
- Play a podcast episode on one of those apps and lock your screen.
- If the crackling disappears, the fault lies entirely with how the native Apple Podcasts app handles background audio buffers on current iOS versions, and it will require a future app update from Apple to permanently patch it.
