iPhone 4 mic only not working in phone app!

Absolutely in love with my iPhone 4 until this very day when this problem happened to me, my phone is well looked after, barely dropped it and when I have it had still worked, I'd been using my phone for phonecalls recently (last phonecall I had was yesterday) then when I woke up my microphone had stopped working when making phone calls. 😟 Will be visiting my nearest apple store (40 miles away) to solve this as it's under warranty... Hoping for a free replacement.

Same problem I had. I purchased my mom's and my iPhone at the same time, around 1.5 years ago. My mom's iPhone had this problem 2 months ago, and now it just happened to my phone: The same problem everyone else is having; mic works fine in apps like Skype, but not for actual phone use. With my mom, the Genius Bar people had us restore the phone, and when that didnt' work, they kept us at the store to do a restore themselves, claiming to be able to do a "more thorough" restore. That didn't work either; they took the phone apart to clean the mic, etc., and still no luck. So my mom had to buy a replacement iPhone 4 for $180, when a Wal-Mart new iPhone 4S is only $188. I wouldn't expect any other manufacturer to do any better, so I can't fault Apple per se, but then again, everyone in my family has an iPhone, and we purchased iPhones for our staff at work too and have switched from PC to Macs due to their quality of product and service. So though I can't fault them, I am disappointed that they won't do more to satisfy their customers when there is an obvious hardware design or manufacturing weakness that is resulting in many people with similar complaints. If this were a car, it would be recalled. I would have expected Apple to instruct their staff to just replace phones whenever a known problem is presented, even if the phone is a bit out of warranty.

There seems to be some discussion that the mic issue is a hardware issue. I'm having the same problem, but have not updated to 5.1.1. Mic works for video and facetime, but not standard calls. One forum on ifixit, related the issue to a short in the cancellation mic near the headphone jack. I guess the cancellation mic is only on during normal calling. Some user turned on "hearing aid" mode in Settings->General->Accessibility. I tried this and it worked briefly. But the audio on the reccieving side of the call dropped again. Other users have ha success cleaning pocket lint out of the phone,...but requires you to take the phone apart.

Just an update to the above, I get intermittent problems with this still. Get a strange clicking/inteferrence sound on some calls and have to push on the back of the phone to be able to hear/be heard so STILL not a permanent fix I'm afraid. WAKE UP APPLE

Hi All, I had this same issue with my iPHone and 4 and also with my iPhone 4s ( bought to forget this bad experince.) Both were in the end replaced though having the same issue after a couple of week. As mentioned beofre buying a iPhone that cannto be used as a mobile telephone after soem weeks is bad experience. Awaits Apple reposne to this soonest.

Oh and i thought this was just happening to me :-(

Restored my iPhone 4 (bought June 2010), upgraded to 5.1.1 and jailbroke using Absinthe 2.0.2. set up loads of apps, jailbreaks and tweaks, left it to sync overnight to get loads of my music on there.

Went to use my phone this morning and nobody can hear meeeeee. What am i going to do. I don't want to go Android but will mean waiting another 6 months til the iPhone 5 or New iPhone comes out.

I will try the cardboard in the back thing and adjusting the screws in the headphone jack and see what happens but my head is shot at the mo.😢

oh yeah, i'm in the Wales, UK

I posted regarding this same problem earlier: iPhone mic doesn't work intermittently when using phone, but works with apps like Skype, etc. Restores, whether done at home or by the Apple Store do not help. The explanation was the noise canceling mic at the top of the phone might not be working, but there is no way to disable the feature. My phone was out of warranty, but they offered me a new phone (in Canada) for $169 + tax. If this is the same situation for you, the $169 phone may be the best bet. I was initially mad, but to be honest, they offered me an extended warranty at the time of purchase and I did not buy it, and no other manufacturer would replace a phone two years down the road when it's no longer under warranty, and it's not really fair for me to expect this of Apple either. Granted, I do have a Macbook Air, an iPad, and have switched my company PCs to Macs and purchased Mac Mini Servers as well due to my good experience using Apple. But I am satisfied that they did not make me buy another $550 phone or have to tie myself into another 3 year contract with one of the phone companies. To be honest, I would rather Tim Cook have used their cash surplus to give a sweeter deal (such as allowing upgrad from 4 to 4s) for dedicated customers with multiple devices such as myself, to strengthen the goodwill, rather than doling out dividends or donating to charity. One of the core strengths of Apple is supposed to be its quality of product and its friendly service. It needs to continue to invest in that goodwill if it is to continue to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Apple store here offered a replacement phone for $150 (32GB iPhone 4). As an 4s goes for $199 (16GB with AT&T 2 year contract) I decided to upgrade my wife's phone to the 4S. So now I have a very fancy iPod touch (her old phone). I might try taking it apart and try the cardboard trick. See if there are any loose screws.

This is sad. My phone began to not working couple day ago. The same as you guy. People can't hear me on the other end. I try to press it and it work for like a couple second and that's it.

Hope apple find a solution for this . So they can help us all.........

I have had the same issue with my iphone... I finally was able to convince the apple store to give me a 50% discount on a replacement - so $75 USD - and got it replaced. They were able to verify it was a hardware issue and so they were willing to help out. Based on the posts here, I am part of the lucky few. Big Kudos to the Apple Store at Park Meadows in Denver, CO!

My iphone 4s is less than 6months old (brought in April) and today 22 June 2012, the microphone stopped working on all calls UNLESS i am on speaker phone.... yet my voicememo still works...

Have you guys had much luck with getting Apple to do something about it??!!!

You should still be under warranty. Take it to the apple store and they will probably replace your phone.

I am having the exact same problem. It is so frustrating. It first happened about 3 months ago and I went to the Apple store. They couldn't help me other than to reset blah blah blah. I was out of warranty and it wasn't a hardware issue because voice recordings still worked. So anyways, Apple restored my phone and it worked... For a couple of weeks. Since then it works on and off. I can use FaceTime, video recordings and Skype all just fine. During a Normal phone call though, no one can hear me. I have been told that sometimes I just cut out completely and other times it sounds like static.

So tonight, after reading all of these posts, I decided to do some testing. FaceTime worked perfectly. Phone call on speaker phone worked fine. When I would swap to normal mic it worked for about 3 seconds then cut out again. A few times if I covered the headphone jack I could be heard again but not for long. It looks like in order to use my CELL PHONE as a PHONE I will have to be on speaker. Absolutely ridiculous situation. I no longer have a house phone and I finding this to be a huge pain in the ***. My next plan is to go set up a genius appointment with one of my friends and hope he can help me.

All of your posts have been very helpful. I really don't want to unscrew my phone. I feel uneasy about this. And I really don't want to pay $160 for a refurbished phone when mine is in fantastic condition, except for one app (arguably the most important app).

Ugh.

Hello again,

Update from my previous comments to this forum ..

The ‘card’ fix worked for a while then the mic went again. I had to open the back cover again and tinkered with the card. After numerous attempts the card was double the thickness. (it is definitely a hardware ‘quality’ fault because if you press the area where the card is placed over, the mic works again. Software makes no different, I had it on iOS 4, 5, 5.1 and 5.1.1)

My wife was getting so irate because the basic function of a phone was playing up, and I was getting so annoyed fixing the phone I carried the screwdriver with me.

But the most annoying is with Apple😠, this £120 for a service call for a fault they denied, bearing in mind the phone was just 15mths old and in pristine condition.

Anyway, I have finally RESOLVED the problem. I got a trade-in of £250 for the iPhone 4 16G (21mths old, pristine condition apart from the mic) from a high street store.

Got my wife a latest Samsung Galaxy Note (stunning pink) on a 2 years contract for a total of £450 .. wot a result😎

Apple, you have lost a customer!

I, too, solved my iPhone problem by ordering the a Samsung Galaxy S3. I have to wait about a week because it's a pre-order in States but I can live with that.