iPhone 5 bad call voice quality

I first reported this issue of call quality in my (San Diego) newspaper column several months ago. After extensive investigation speaking off the record with case manufacturers and wireless headset company executives, I confirmed that the echo cancelling design of the iPhone 5 suffers serious flaws. Results vary widely depending on the case, the position of the phone, ambient noise, and many other variables.

Everyone I spoke within these industries said Apple is not being open to them about what is being done, if anything, to fix the problem. They won't even admit there is a problem, but there intelligence and experience indicates the problem is serious and widespread.

Engineers in these companies are unable to speak directly to Apple engineers. They have to go through a middle man at Apple that has little technical expertise. From all I can tell, and I've been in the tech industry writing and designing products for many decades, the iPhone 5 suffers from serious design flaws. My sense tells me this is as big a screwup as the Maps fiasco.

This "bad voice call" problem would NOT be expierenced by the iPhone 5 callers themselves, but by the persons at the other end. If your iPhone 5 calling any other phone, that person should experience your voice fading in and out, muffled, "robotic", "digitized", etc. But you may not hear anything wrong.

If the receiving phone is also an iPhone 5, then situation is the worst. I can see husband and wife getting divorce over a bad phone call. Especially if you have sensitive ears (musicians, singers), then it becomes insanely intorable.

Also, if you do have sensitive ears, the "vertigo" effect of noise cancelling which would produce "counter-noise" sound waves into your ear can drive you crazy. Why? Because noise cancelling only works correctly with 2 ears, but this case, one ear is subject to noise and one ear is not, leading to listeners feeling imbalanced and disoriented and dizzy.

iPhone 5 are not widely sold yet, so you would not have to talk to many other iPhone 5's. But soon, I suspect as more people talking on iPhone 5's, the problem will be more recognized and maybe Apple will do something about it. Also, many young users are using iPhone 5 as a mini computer, they could care less about phone calls - texting, email, Facebook, Twitt, web surfing and games are all they want.

I would suggest users just stop exchange for another iPhone 5 to solve this problem (don't you think after the 5th exchange is enough?) and wait till Apple to fix it.

Or go back to iPhone 4S. That's what I did and it works for me even I know iPhone 5 is a better "computer".

So that proves the point: iPhone 4S does not have this "bad voice call" problem. Apple, are you listening?

It's common for companies to keep their engineers away from the general public. Not only do they sometimes lack the patience and manners a good PR person would have, they also don't want their expensive time being taken up by dealing with questions/problems from the general public that their support team should handle.

How could the iPhone 5 have seroius design flaws when all the ones I have seen work fine.

If 25 million are produced and only a few experience any problems, what should Apple to do?

Widespread problem? How wide? 100 out of a million? 50 out of 20 million? Serous design flaws when mine work perfecty?

Im sure we all saw the post from Walt Mossberg who said his iPhone works fine and won't report a "problem" he hasn't experienced.

The killer was the peole who left the plactic shiping cover on the front of the phone and then complained about low caller volume!

Also, if you do have sentive ears, the "vertigo" effect of noise cancelling which would produce "counter-noise" sound waves into your ear can drive you crazy. Why? Because noise cancelling only works correctly with 2 ears, but this case, one ear is subject to noise and one ear is not, leading to listeners feeling imbalanced and disoriented and dizzy.

How does a sound have vertigo? The sound spins around? From one speaker? And that makes the listener feel like they are spinning?

What is "counter-noise"? Do you mean noise of a different phase?

Do you mean that when using one earpiece, like an IFB on television, all people feel imbalance and dizzy. That's not true.

Do noise cancelling microphones make anyone dizzy?

Or take a walkie-talkie with a survanance earpiece like the Secret Service wear. Do all of them go around dizzy? Hearing a quite phone in one ear does not make you go dizzy. The person you are talking with hears the lack of noise, not the caller.

Where did you hear that noise cancellation only works with two ears?

Charles Park Seward:
I'm not entirely sure what your point is. To some degree you almost seem to say that there is no problem as you are not experiencing it, which is usually one of the least helpful answers anyone can give.

I assure you that it's real, and it's not something as simple as removing the front cover plastic.

It seems to show itself in a few different ways, as you write in one of your posts. If it is one or several problems I'm not sure, but they seem related. Personally I've got the problem where when I make a call it can sometimes just make the reciever of the call sound like static, and then cuts out. I've tried changing the phone once but that didn't help. And since many others here have the same experience with each exchange it probably wouldn't get better with another.

If I would be allowed to just guess I think it's probably a problem with the phone (hardware or software) which only shows itself under certain circumstances, and the majority which don't have any problem just don't have those circumstances.

For example so far I've only had this problem at home when calling someone else, and more often than not it happens after the phone has been lying unused for a while, on but in locked mode. Then there is a pretty large chance that the next call when I pick it upp will be a "bad" one. Now I'm not entirely sure if it only happens at home, since I don't make that many outgoing calls when I'm away after not using it for a long time. When I'm away from home I usually fiddle around with it a lot so that might affect it. But say that it is only when I'm at home. What's so different there that could affect this? Well the only thing that I can think of is that I've got my Wifi which the phone is connected to. But there's really no problem with it as such. The phone can use it without any problem, and all my other devices can use it also. And how many doesn't connect their phones to their Wifi? If it was that then almost everyone should have the same problem. So I'm pretty confused as to what the problem could be.

The funny thing is though that my girlfriend told me before getting the iPhone 5 that she had a "feeling" that there would be problems with it. Now and then she has such feelings and they often turn out to become reality. But that's just a side note. 🙂

Charles Park Seward is an Apple apologist so he will deny the problem. However, this is a real problem. For almost 8 years I have used at least 4 different Blackberry models on the same carrier, in the same home office region, and none of them exhibited the issue I have with my iPhone 5 that has plagued it day-one. The issue for me (and many others), when I am on a phone conference (as I am often), I have in earphones (doesn't matter who's), and others on one of the other conference bridge endpoints are gathered around a speaker phone, invariably there is someone not speakind directly into the mic on the other end. I can hear them granted, but they cut in and out in almost constant intervals of between 1 and 2 seconds...and when they cut out, it is dead silence.

That choppy, cut in and out, doesn't happen when talking one-on-one, and it seems to be only for certain volumn situations for the speaker on the other end. Others can hear me fine.

I've never had this issue before, but am plagued by it now, and since this is the primary use of my businesss phone, it is unacceptable.

It does, in fact, seem like something to do with noise cancellation. But, I don't know the problem. Others that have reported this, and there are many, and there is a video link posted here that shows this very issue, claim it is fixed in an iOS beta release.

Guys

My first iphone 5 that I got on the day or release had the robotic sound issue , I wanted a replacement but due to the severe backlog , verizon told me I would be out of the iphone for 3 weeks

I returned the phone , went back to my old iphone and now go the iphone back last weekend since it is now fully in stock.

The second phone DOES NOT have the problem and i am so happy. Everything in my old phone was perfect except this issue and this is gone now.

my strong feeling is that this is a HARDWARE issue. please get your unit replaced. I dont think it will be fixed by a software update.

Also given that the thread is still so short after 3 months of release. The number of people having this problem must be in just hundreds vs millions and millions sold

Apple cares for its customers , i dont think this is a design issue , noise cancellation issue like several of us are speculating.

Please either replace your unit or return your phone. Dont put your hopes that a software update may fix it.

I got 4 iPhone 5.

One at the start which voice quality (BUMPING VOLUME is for me a software issue, i talk about HD-Voice icompatiblity with my operator) was awful. Returned it.

A month later i bought a 16GB and a 32GB. 16GB is doing well on an another operator, battery life is excellent. 32GB on the network of "Three (Hutchison) Austria" still suffered from HD-Voice issue. Got it replaced two times. Any single phone had issues with HD-Voice and last one has also robotic voice when on EDGE. Also every phone had scratches.

Apple refuses to change again (scratches, voice issue) though i'm in return period as the period always restarts when replacement arrives. I asked for an offer to keep the phone (bacause of the scratches) or to replace it. Apple simply said no.

Well the only language Apple understands is -> money and sales. So i have no other option as to return this phone as well (16GB iPhone5 which i also own doesn't have any scratches).

So i'm very disappointed that they refused to replace a scratched phone and don't acknowledge the voice problem.

I really recommend to everyone suffering from similiar problems to return their phones. It's the cheapest phone in the market and for that money you could expect superior customer service and a working device (also purchased Apple Care).

The sad thing is i was able to reproduce bad voice quality with countless other iPhone5 on my carrier. Most people just don't get it that there's a problem because the don't have comparison.

I also switched to a Verizon iPhone 5 from an AT&T iPhone 4. I have the same issue of robotic voices, choppy sound quality and cutting out altogether at times. I purchased at best buy, and have already returned it once. 2nd verizon phone has same issues. I have tried all the fixes:

• turning off bluetooth
• turning on hearlng aid setting
• resetting to factory instead of restoring from my iphone4 backup
• resetting network settings
• ugraded to new IOS 6.0.2 released just today

and more.....My plan is to return the phone and try an iPhone 5 via AT&T. However, based on 29 pages of similar complaints on this thread, I believe the problem is with the iPhone 5 itself, regardless of carrier. I will try the iPhone 5 on AT&T for the same period of time 14 days, then return it for a 4S if the problem is not fixed by switching carriers. I'll try to remember to come back here and post my findings. Take a look below, its happening to alot of folks in alot of different situations. I am hopeful that it might be fixed in the next version that is still in beta, but I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE

I'm now almost calling for 2 weeks with my Iphone5 on a new provider and no more problems.

For me changing to another provider has fixed this problem.

I'm pretty sure it has to do something with the HD Voice and how providers are dealing with this.

I'm a happy iphone5 user now :-) + I'm paying less than the previous provider :-))))

I just upgraded to iOS 6.0.2. My voice is fine now (it was choppy and robotic-like before) and I called 3 people (2 cell and 1 landline to be sure). I have an iPhone 5 64GB with Verizon in the US. Maybe the update took the voice off HD or over the LTE network. My guess would be that some phones are pre-set to use the new LTE networks. Verizon has some information that voice and data cannot be done simultaneously yet due to the underdevelopment of the LTE network thus far. Hopefully this update helps all the other issues.

How did you upgrade? My phone thinks 6.0.1 is the latest. If you used a developer beta, can you say which beta solved it? And if you are in the U.S., would you please perform the following test and report results: Use apple headphones in a very quiet room, call Hertz at +1 (877) 654-4400, turn the headset volume down to the lowest setting. If you can hear the entire recording beginning to end (wait for the pause to hear it all, including the menu) without any drop-outs, that will be very encouraging. I've found this test a way of reproducing the problem on multiple iphone 5 units and carrier networks - whereas the recording is clear and uninterrupted on iphone 4. I'm looking forward to buying an iphone 5 as soon as the problem's resolved.

@ sk1sk1

I also did the upgrade to IOS 6.0.2 just through my phone today.

Maybe you can try via Itunes if your phone is not finding the update, are you connected to WIFI if you do the search to updates, if you are not connected to WIFI this could also be the problem...

sk, the 6.0.2 is now available. Your iphone 5 should allow you to upgrade. If it doesn't you should see a Genius at Apple. I'm on my 4th iPhone 5 and so far so good. It's frustrating but the folks at Apple have been great about changing out phones. Just hope this one works. Good luck everybody.

Ok thanks. Could someone run the test I suggested for me and see what you get? I've had the same experience - Apple very willing to swap out phones - but I had determined that 100% of the phones tested in the store had the same problem in the same way. I didn't want to waste the world's resources - or Apple's - swapping phones needlessly, so I decided to wait and buy one when fixed. It's good to hear it may be done already - in time for Xmas!