Light ticking or crackling from iPhone 4S earpiece when on a call

Yeah, battery is pretty weak compared to my iPhone 4. Hope fix will come soon because i'm beginning to miss my iPhone 4 ...

Yeah the first phone I had was worse than the one I have now although this one isn't good at all. The battery definitely doesn't last as long as my previous iPhone 4 :-(

Hope this gets sorted as getting refunds on mobiles seems almost impossible!

Beginning to miss my iPhone 4 as well :-(

Yes! I was very disappointed when my battery was at 94 percent after 1 hour of standby, where my iPhone 4, which was a replacement by the way with less battery life than my original iPhone 4, would usually be at 99 or 100 percent after that time.

i also have this ticking crackling sound in the earpiece it doesn't really seem that bad but i'm just gonna wait it out for a bit hopefully a softwear update will bring it to normal also i'm worried about the yellow screen and battery issues everyone talking about that'w why i'm waiting it out.

Same problem here. I returned my first phone to apple store (couldn't reproduce it at apple store but they exchanged anyways) my second unit has same issue. Can't hear it at apple store, but I hear it at work and at home. Could be environmental too, but there is definitely a problem with the phones design. It can only be heard in ear piece. Don't exchange your phone because they all have the issue, its just most people can't hear it.

Same problem here. I don't use the phone very much but it is highly annoying hearing the static in the background. I sure hope this isn't a hardware issue.

Have the same issue; sometimes there's noise, sometimes there isn't.

Will wait it out a bit, as all 4S iPhones are sold out now anyway.

Could be environmental, as I hear it all the time when I'm at home, and only sometimes when I'm at work.

But whatever the cause: this shouldn't happen on a brand new $750 phone. Hopefully Apple can fix it in baseband firmware.

I just googled this issue minutes ago after I was on a call and started noticing a crackling buzzing sound in the earpiece, like a short circuit sound.

My 4S also makes the sound when not on a call. If I turn the screen on and place the earpiece to my ear I can hear the same noise, Siri on or off makes no difference.

Very disturbing sound, I can't believe this! Otherwise this phone has been awesome until now.

I am on AT&T in North Carolina.

Back it goes!!!

Too noisy in an Apple store to hear this issue. I'm in my home office and can hear it loud and clear.

I have had this same issue with 2 phones now. First one was worse and sounded a bit like CPU whine and would even pop fairly loudly every once in a while. The replacement seems to have the same problem but it's been much quieter so far and sounds more like static and only occurrs occasionally. The replacement has several other problems as well (earpiece works maybe 50% of time, sounds very distorted sometimes, and the glass in one of the corners seems to be separating from the body of the phone) so I am going to see about exchanging it tonight.

i feel better knowing that i'm not the only one having this issue.

i brought my 4s 32gb to the store tonight, and the guy agreed that it was faint, and replaced it. but he made me feel like i was taking advantage of apple by saying soemthing like, "normally, this isn't a problem that would warrant a new device, but i'll help you out..." um, gee, thanks?

so i took the enw phone home and set it up. SAME static/crackle noise. and what's worse, i think that it's even worse on this 2nd phone -- as when i use headphones and listen to music. 😟 i am so sensitive to sounds, so it totally drives me nuts.

is it possible that this problem could be fixed for all of us by a software update?

As it stands now, I believe that the crackling stopped for me when I disabled Siri

Turning off Siri didnt change it for me.