Iphone 5 volume too low

I did the International change to British English and back, first. May have made a slight difference in volume, but not drastic. Turning on the hearing aid support made a big difference. Just like one of the previous posters mentioned, go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Aids. When presented with the Blue Tooth dialog window, click CANCEL. Then turn on "hearing aid mode". The volume increase/improvement was significant. Thanks for the tip. (It is a shame that you have to do this to make the speaker volume max what it should be.)

I've had the iPhone 5 for almost a year now and I HAD the same problem.

This fixed it for me:
Before I had iPhone 5 I had iPhone 3GS. When I got the new phone I backed up everything from 3GS and set up the new phone from that backup, all contacts, messages and that. I got the problem from the start; low volume from the headphone socket. The speaker volume was not affected. I read it somewhere that when you "restore from backup" from 3GS (might happen on other types, don't know) the iPhone 5 got a problem with the volume.

So the fix was to set the phone up "AS A NEW PHONE". I backed up the contacts on 3GS to iCloud and imported photos etc. to my macbook so I wouldn't lose them. Restored everything with no problem to the new phone. There was a DRASTIC difference in the headphone socket volume. Haven't had the problem since.

-b
UPDATE: Sorry, I must have misunderstood the problem. My problem was vice versa to yours. Anyway... If people have problem with the headphone socket volume, this might help...

Message was edited by: BinniB

I did a small hunt in settings before finding you, bluesappie. Yup - it was the film. Soooooo stupid. I'm very grateful. Hope Apple support now know to ask about this for those who don't make it to this page 😉

Amazing. It is now April, 2014 and the "bluesapphie" suggestion/solution is still needed, and it still works. Surprisingly, removing the protective film from in front of the ear piece made all of the difference.

All users,

For 5c users (and perhaps others), check that the SPEAKER HOLES (see bottom right corner of the phone) aren't PLUGGED UP WITH FOREIGN MATTER (e.g., dirt, melted candy, dried hand lotion, whatever).

Excactly same problem I had. I removed the wrongly installed screen guard, which was covering the hearing part, and it sounded loud and clear.

Unbelievably your language switch worked for me too. Amazing. Well done

How weird - yes that fixed it for me too :-) Many Thanks

Big Thanks to Rebaskins. The switching of the language from English to English UK and then back again worked for me.

I had the same problem. My wife's 5C had extremely low volume. You could only hear the person at the other end of the call very faintly.

I tried everything including resets and all sorts of different phone settings to no avail. Finally I concluded it must need to have a new ear speaker. I installed the new speaker .......... same problem.

I was desperately looking for solutions and I can't explain why but this language switching worked.

Job done! Thanks

YYou are spot on! Thank you!!

Absolutely spot on answer :)

I really don't know how this works or why but it does. General >> Settings >> language >> English UK >> set that and change back to English US