Q: iPhone 5 bad call voice quality

Adding the end of my story here:  I went to the Apple store, but because the problem is inconsistent (sometimes works but mostly doesn't) it of course worked okay at the store.  They wouldn't take my word for it that this was a problem, although they did suggest I probably needed new earphones (even though I told them I already tried multiple sets).  My 14 days to return this to Verizon is about to be up, so I'm just returning the phone through them.  Too bad, this was my first iphone and I really did like all the other features.  Now I'm going to have to try some other kind of smarphone; I'm not willing to roll the dice on this problem again since it essentially made it impossible to use this iphone for business calls.  Best of luck to all of you.   

Right, i have changed my phone for 4th time today beacsue of this issue but this time i went to a different apple store and insisted that they give me a replacement from a different batch as i beleive the orblem could be down to the particular batch of phones hardware issues. I also have a new nano sim. No signs of the problem as yet but this is only day 1! ill keep you all posted !!

Update on my phone. After one week of dropped calls and very bad call quality & visits to both apple and verizons stores... They swapped my sim. After a second week (and after my 14 days to return to Verizon because apple genius wanted 2 weeks of data in the phone to troubleshoot) of the same problems Apple store saw no problems in the data - however when I insisted (vehemently) that this particular iPhone 5 was useless as a phone and I would throw it out and get an iPhone 4s, they replaced the phone. Miraculous, now I have not had any of the issues that were plaguing me.

They were reluctant to also swap my wife's phone as the history in the phone showed now errors and my wife wasn't as upset as I was. Will plan to go back and get hers swapped since it did work on mine and we got them at the same time. (I asked them to note in the account that hers was showing same signs - we'll see when I go back) She just thought that maybe Verizon had consistently worse service than AT&T...

So - I had bad hardware and the new phone fixed it.

Jeff

Confused... LTE is for Data use only.  how does it affect the phone calls?

ANyways, my calls have been waaay better on my i5 than the i4.

لا شيء لديه لضمان الأبد. بعض الناس لا تزال تستخدم هناك اي فون الأصلي ويعمل فقط حتى تجد أبل لا تجعل المنتج أكثر من مشاركة في السنة. مرة أخرى، وأبل ليست هنا حتى معالجة مباشرة من قبل لهم هنا نقول لهم لتقديم أفضل المنتجات يجعلك تبدو غبية.

انها خطأه بأن هذه البطارية له يستنزف بمعدل quynt غير معقول لأنه لم يكن رفض سطوع؟ هل تعتقد بصدق الهراء الذي كنت بالإرسال؟ لماذا لديك هاتف مع شاشة كبيرة عندما يكون لديك لرفض سطوع فقط للحصول على أن تستمر أكثر من بضع ساعات؟ المدمج في بطارية ليثيوم أيون قابلة للشحن

الشحن عن طريق USB لنظام الكمبيوتر أو محول الطاقة

وقت التحدث: ما يصل إلى 8 ساعات على الجيل الثالث 3G

وقت الانتظار: حتى 225 ساعة

استخدام الإنترنت: إلى 8 ساعات حتى على الجيل الثالث 3G، وتصل إلى 8 ساعات على LTE، وتصل إلى 10 ساعة على واي فاي

تشغيل الفيديو: ما يصل إلى 10 ساعة

قراءة الصوت: ما يصل إلى 40 ساعة

انه لشيء رائع أبل تقدم من الصرف الضمان. اذا لم يفعلوا، وكنت قد لشراء هاتف جديد كليا.

ولكن على الجانب الآخر الاشياء يحدث أن السبب في أنها توفر لك الفرصة لتوسيع نطاق الضمان الخاص بها ثم مزيد من عام واحد فقط (في الولايات المتحدة) واخترت عدم.

من له خطأ الخاصة بسبب ذلك وبسبب الأجهزة لديه المفتوحة

I'm having same trouble: iPhone 5 32GB with Verizon in California. Full bars, but grainy and choppy. Often the first part of each word is cut off. Seems a bit worse with headphones. When making calls there is also static and volume fluctuation when it rings. Toll free numbers are worse. Receiving person sometimes has trouble hearing me as well.

If you are reading this thread, please take a second post your trouble so Apple will have the incentive to sort this out!!!

I am finding the first word of the Apple maps direction is also cut off using a Plantronics Legend cell phone headset. Still experience choppiness and drop outs. And now a new issue to report. While in a conversation on the BT headset sometimes it goes silent. The person on the other end says he can hear me, but I hear perfect silense. If I switch to Speaker or iPhone and then back to headphone, the voice comes back.

This problem is much bigger than the Apple Maps issue.

I really have to thank everyone here for their posts.  I have a Verizon iPhone 5 and incoming calls sounded like the audio was run through a very lossy compression algorithm.  It just sounded very highly processed, like a bad Skype call, very garbled.  Thanks to this discussion thread, I decided to make a genius bar appointment at my local Apple store.  Within a minute the store rep agreed the phone sounded bad and gave me a replacement 'service phone'.  It came in a white box with just the phone (no charger or earpods).  He said it could contain refurb parts, but it was likely brand new since the device hasn't been available for long.  I didn't care because it looked brand new. 

I took the new phone to a Verizon corporate store and had them replace the SIM as well, just in case.

The new phone sounds much better.  Even a Skype call sounded pretty good using the latest version 4.1.1 of Skype.  There's no question this is a hardware issue.  I did some troubleshooting with Verizon before I went to the Apple store, and Verizon concluded that it wasn't a network issue.

I'm a new Verizon subscriber and I've never had an iPhone before ... so I certainly would have returned my original phone if I hadn't discovered it might be a hardware problem through this forum.

I suspect Apple is having a hard time with unit to unit consistency ... ok call it quality control.  I've pre-ordered other recent Apple products (Retina Macbook Pro and iPad 3) and had zero problems.  Apparently the iPhone 5 is a very challenging device to produce.

By the way, I'm also getting a slightly better LTE signal on the new phone ... just another indication that there's too much unit to unit variability right now.

I am also having this same problem!! I just received my phone last Monday and can't here anything when I am talking to someone. It's an awful echo and it even makes my ear pop! Apple needs to fix this or I will be returning my phone!

I have got the same problem here.

Just bought my iPhone 5 two weaks ago and some calls are very bad quality, I do not understand a word of what the people on the other site of the phone is saying. The weird thing is that it does not happen with all the calls.

The iPhone 5 is great, also paid a lot of money for it so I want to experience high quality voice calls all the time.

In need off an update! ASAP Please!

We're having voice quality issues with headsets. I've tried about 5 different kinds (Bluetooth, Apple, other brand wired) and all have the same problem...volume fluctuations on the receiving end. All of these headsets have noise canceling mics. Swapped a phone several times.

* All same characteristic problem with 7 different iPhone 5 (all AT&T)

* Headsets have noise canceling mics

* Receiver hears voice volume fluctuations

* Voice quality is fine without a headset

Does anyone have an suggestions? I was in touch with Apple about this and while they submitted my report, I haven't heard a peep from them in 2 weeks.

Don't worry, in two additional weeks the new iPhone will be presented with a new headphone :D

Anyway, could be nice to get a feedback from Apple about this problem.

I have had similar problems with the Verizon model and, according to contacts within the BT headset industry, it's caused by the new noise cancelling technology Apple is using. These companies are working on a sw fix. But many still experience the problem without headsets also.

Just wanted to say that both my wife and I are having voice quality issues on our Verizon 16Gb iPhone 5's.  Exact same issue on each, call quality is terrible, robotic, sometimes completely unusable.  Will be going to the Apple Store this weekend to see what they say...

Reset your Verizon voice software by pressing *18 Send on each phone and it should fix your issue.