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Beats by Dr. Dre + iOS 6. Any solution?

I purchased Beats by Dr. Dre Bluetooth headphones, approximately a week before iOS 6 was released. I have looked around the support community, and it seems that I am not alone with issues in that regard. For whatever reason, Apple refuses to accept or admit that iOS 6 is the reason. Blindly, I trusted Apple and directly upgraded my iPhone 4S to iOS 6. After doing some searching, I have tried everything from doing a "hard reset", to disabling networking, to backing up my phone with iTunes 10.7 on Windows 7 X64 Service Pack 1, and did a factory reset of my phone, as if it was a new phone. Prior to the update to iOS 6, when using iOS 5.1.1, I had no problem with the headphones whatsoever. My phone played music with crystal clear sound quality, with no hiccups, lag, or stuttering at all. Unlike some other brands of Bluetooth headphones, the Beats by Dr. Dre have no "software" to setup. The only options are to tell the phone to forget the device, and re-sysnc them with the iPhone. I tried doing that on many occasions, including after doing a "hard reset" of the phone itself, disabling networking, asking the phone to forget them and re-sysnc them, but all to no avail. I don't believe the headphones are the problem, because I tried using them with a friends iPhone iOS 5.1.1, and again there was no stuttering, popping, hissing, or music lag on playback, so I know the headphones are fine. How difficult is it for Apple to admit that something significant changed in how iOS 6 was changed with how Bluetooth functions? Sadly, Apple long ago stopped signing iOS 5.1.1, so there is no way to "downgrade" an A5 iPhone 4S to 5.1.1 from iOS 6. It would solve the problem until iOS 6.0.1 gets released, if Apple actually addresses the Bluetooth issue. Sadly, that isn't possible, even with "saved" blobs, due to there being no means to use a non-signed firmware. I really loved my headphones, and I got a lot of use out of them with my iPhone 4S before I upgraded my phone to iOS 6. Now, I hardly use them at all. In addition to music hanging, freezing, popping, and/or music lag on playback, the music cuts out off and on randomly. There is no means, even using the included USB cord that comes with the headphones to firmware upgrade them, if that would even be necessary. I made certain my headphones are fully charged when used, so a low battery cannot be the problem. Has anyone found any possible solution? If not, I am very tempted to take my phone back to the AT&T store and get a "new" iPhone 4S that still includes iOS 5.1.1, until/unless Apple addresses Bluetooth issues with iOS 6 and releases a "fix" with iOS 6.0.1. I really don't want to have to do that, given that even "backed up" to the cloud, I am unable to do just a simple phone swap, given that iCloud only has 5GB of storage space. Even with iTunes music match, which I did purchase, it still doesn't have all of the "backup" files needed. Even as over priced as the store is, at Best Buy, anyone can go buy an iternal hard drive with 3TB of storage for less than $100.00. 1TB = approximately 100GB and/olr 1000MB of storage space. Given the low cost of iternal storage capacity, I find it hard to grasp why Apple limits the max size any iPhone/iPad at only a mere 64GB. iCloud is limited to a mere 5GB of storage space. Between books, magazines, music, videos, applications, games, and data files, that easily exceeds the 64GB of storage space. I realize that is a different subject entirely, but it does apply in a sense. When my music is directly ripped from purchased physical CDs to iTunes Plus 256kbps, my music collection easily exceeds the storage coapacity of my iPhone. I faily to see how "shrinking" my music to 192kbps, much less "ugh" 128kbps, will in any way whatsoever address the music quality heard "when it plays" on my iPhone 4S via IOS 6. So please, either someone come up with a workable soulution with Bluetooth and those headphones, i.e. the Beats by Dr. Dre, or Apple needs to own up to a mistake, issue, or problems with iOS 6, and more quickly release a working functioning and tested Bluetooth that will solve the problem.

iPhone 4S, iOS 6

Posted on Oct 31, 2012 9:11 AM

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1 reply

Oct 31, 2012 6:21 PM in response to m4t7h3w

Have you made any contact with the company that manufactures Dr. Dre and see if their headphones support Bluetooth version 4.0. iOS 6 has changed the iPhone's Bluetooth profile to version 4.0 and it is possible the headphones are not compatible with that version. This has been the issue with connecting the iPhone with a number of in-car systems. This may be an avenue to research. I don't know that it is the answer, but that would be one of my first places to check. It is the manufactures responsibility for compatability with devices.

Beats by Dr. Dre + iOS 6. Any solution?

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