iPhone 5 Microphone not working?

If you look at the rear of the phone near the camera there is a little hole for the noise cancellation mic, make sure...

a) your case is not covering the hole as the vibrations through the case from your voice will be cancelled out

b) the hole isn't filled with dirt as this will muffle your voice and the iphone confuses your voice as backgrounds noise and cancels it out.

c) if a & b don't work replace your rear mic as this is probably the one causing the issue.

Hope this helps 😎

I have the same problem with microphone. It seems to on what's app or FaceTime perfectly. But when using normal call , people can't hear me. When I went to iPhone store in sandton they wanted to charge me over R 5000 to swop this phone. I.e. That's what paid for the phone. Why don't we all together complain to iPhone. Perhaps we get a better response then?

Youre not the only one, i have the same symptoms. The funny thing is i made a call on release day perfectly fine, only to get to work the next day and realize i could no longer be heard while on a voice call. If i switch to speaker microphone works. its wierd because video, face time, and i even asked siri if she could hear me and she confirmed that she could at normal voice levels. i made an appointment at the genius bar for monday 9-24 so hopefully they can figure it out without replacing the entire device......its quite disappointing i must say. i expect far better from Apple products.

Same issue here. Main mic seems to be causing issues even when speakerphone works perfectly clearly. I took mine to the Genius Bar today - they replaced the device, and while it seems better, it still is not perfect. First time around, according to the other caller, I was garbled or cutting in and out. With the new one it seems more like muffled or tunnely... But at least the other caller can hear me now. Gonna give mine a day or two and see what happens...

I had the same problem. I could use the phone to talk to people but could not use it for Siri, any voice dictation or video recording. Also, when I actived the speaker while on a call, the person on the other end of the line could not hear me anymore. I got it from from Verizon but took it to the local Apple store. They hooked me up with a new one and I was out the door in a few minutes. Definitely a defect. You'll have to return it.

Same problem here! Microphone does not work at all. I tried Siri right after setting it up and it worked fine. After that one time it hasn't worked. Videos just have static sound, speaker phone doesn't work at all, no voice recognition. To say I'm disappointed is an extreme understatement! It's clearly a hardware issue. Apple let me down for the first time ever. Seriously debating just turning my iPhone 4 back on. It's 2-1/2 years old and the battery last longer and the microphone works. Guess I got a bad Apple.

Did you take of the orginal front and back film protectors?

Yes, I've been using it since Friday. After trying Siri successfully the first time and not expecting any issues (as usual) I just started using it. Saturday morning I tried Siri real quick and it didn't work, but I didn't think anything of it. Since this is my first Siri phone I thought I was doing something wrong. A few days went by and then I tried it again and it didn't work that time either. So I googled "How to use Siri" and that's when I realized it wasn't me it was the mircophone. Then of course I checked all the mircrophone related functions and none of them work. I'm so dissappointed. I'm an extremely busy person...literally 80-100 hrs a week of work so I don't have time to deal with issues. That's why I have had iphones for 4+ years. I certainly don't have time to drive 45 minutes to the nearest store to get this issue resolved.

Having the same problem here. Mic works fine for Siri, normal voice calls. However, on speakerphone no one can hear me on the other end. If I talk loud enough the phone starts feeding back and I can hear my voice echoed. This tells me that at least one of the mics is working, but the audio never makes it to the receiving end. Have been on the phone with Apple. They had me restore the phone to no a avail. Calling them back tomorrow.

It seems one of the mics for noise cancellation is cancelling your own voice, because the proximity sensor is believing you are close, while you are not, and your own voice is getting fed through the top one.

Do this test:

put the phone screen right in front of your mouth, 4-5 inches from it, and speak to the center of the screen. Not to the mic, not to the top speaker.

Mine just mutes me completelly.

It should (or so it should have been designed) NOT cancell noise when NOT against the face. When against the face, the sound entering through the top part SHOULD be considered not-desired, while the sound entering through the bottom mic should be considered as the desired source. BUT when you take your phone away a few inches, e.g. to read the agenda out loud to your other person, both mics are EXPECTED to have similar input, so you CAN'T just cancell them out.

The proximity sensor should take care of that, and in mine it's not.

It gets my voice correctly when I put it on "speaker" mode, though. (you manually told your phone you will be away from the phone), so that part works.

I'm taking it to the AppleStore right away. It could have something to do with the rattling noise described in other posts.

I'm on my 3rd iPhone 5 in less than 30 days - all are doing this problem - always had iPhones and never this problem - most programmers I know are saying this is a software problem but how do we get apple to fix it? I'm using this thing for business so I can't have clients not able to hear me when I don't even know it's happening unless they say say "hey marble mouth - speak more clearly" ... There is a fix (this leads me to think software) that if I pull the phone away from my mouth until the screen lights up then bring it back then it will temporarily sound clear to the person I'm talking to again.

May be my explanation fixes your issue. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1483567

I am having the same problem all of a sudden, with an iPhone 5 i bought in October, it was fine and all of a sudden the mic doesnt work, the earphone and speaker does work however. I have read your posts a few times and I am not getting your solution/suggestion. SHould I just take it back to the store where I bought it. I am really starting to regret this purchase...

Vincy:

Combining both issues, I can imagine a theory you can test:

I've noticed most of times I raise the lower part of the phone is when I pick up a call in bed, or in laid down on the couch, even without separating it from the ear, so I'm starting to suspect that there could be some unpublished feature like "detecting when the phone is upside down" like when you use it as a hand-recorder or a nextel, and it could be changing the behavior of the noise reduction (what finally mutes your voice by software without an actual problem in the hardware)…

So try out some apps that use the full 360 degrees of the gyroscope, to test its smoothness.

If there's any change in the phone's behavior depending on the position, a stuck gyroscope could be causing it.

That could also explain why some people gets their voice back (to the listener at the other end) after moving jiggling it around.

Good luck.