iPhone sounds muffled to people I talk to

I had same problem. I read on another post it is an issue with Apple's attempt at noise cancelation when making calls when background noise is present. It was suggested to disable noise cancellation by enabling hearing aid mode (under General-->Assesibilty). The only down side is it makes you enable bluetooth and amplifies your handset volume a bit. I tested it with several people and they all noted how much better they could hear and understand me. I had been to 3 Verizon store for help and no one could figure it out ... thank goodness for support communities. Hope this helps.

Hi cfpmike,

In this case I believe Steve Jobs would be correct! I commented in this discussion before, and my issue was very similar. And I believe I solved it. It was my leather book style case that I was using with my iPhone 5S. When I folded the case's cover to the back as I talked on the iPhone, it would cover the noise-canceling mic on the back. This caused whoever was on the other line to hear my voice all muffled. Once I kept the back from getting covered up and/or took my phone out of my case, I would sound clear on the other end. It was because of the noise-canceling mic being slightly covered from my case's cover when I folded it back.

This is still annoying for me, as I still hold my phone wrong sometimes by accident and my friends and family yell at me about it. A solution for me would to just buy a different case for the phone, but heck I like the case I got now. It's the people on the other line that don't!

My suggestions to you, would be to purchase a case that doesn't let your hand get in the way of the noise-canceling mic. Maybe something bulky like a Otterbox. Test some cases out at the apple store and see what your like.

Also I never had this issue before with my iPhone 4. Ever. I had a similar book style case that covered the back of my phone and I was pretty much holding my iPhone 5S the same exact way as I did the 4. So I am hoping that Apple does something with the iOS 7 software that will fix this issue for us 5/5S owners in a later update, but it could just as well be a hardware issue which a software update won't be able to fix.

As you are aware the iPhone 5 has 3 mics. One on the bottom you talk into, one in the speaker grille where your ear goes, and one on the back near the camera. They all help in noise cancellation. The one by the camera, keep that mic completely clear or completely blocked and they have no complaints. Put your hand over it and they say you sound distant or muffled.

People said I sounded muffled on my iphone 5 so I did some experimenting of my own.

I use a cheap aftermarket leather case which hinges open sideways. I believe when the case is hinged open to the back it rubs against the rear mic and also my voice is directed up between the case and flipped lid. Both of these issues mess with the rear mic making me sound muffled to other callers.

I removed the phone from the case and covered over the small mic on the back with a small cut up piece of sticky tape. Put it back together and all good.

It solved the problem for me.

Hope that helps.

When I hold my iPhone 5S in my left hand to my left ear the sound is muffled. I remember Steve Jobs saying you're holding it wrong. Although this had nothing to do with the problem we're having now it got me to thinking. I looked at my hand holding the iPhone my thumb was on the left edge with my to two Center fingers on the right edge. My index finger was up close to the noise canceling mic on the back of the phone and my palm was down by the regular mic. I could see as I talked the voice could hit my palm travel up my hand to my index finger which was close to the microphone on the back.

I called my wife on the house phone using my iPhone 5S. She said that my voice was muffled. I took my index finger away from the microphone and moved it next to my two Center fingers on the right side of the phone. This moved my palm away from the microphone at the bottom. I did this while she stayed on the line. She said that now she could hear me clearly. I then moved my index finger to completely cover the back microphone. Once again she said that the sound was still good. I then moved my index finger a small amount away from the microphone and she said that my voice was muffled again.

I believe that the way I was holding my hand acted as a megaphone to the noise canceling microphone in the back. The noise canceling microphone thought my voice was noise and was suppressing it.

I work in a noisy environment, so I like the idea of the noise canceling microphone. Going to the settings and turning off the noise canceling microphone or putting a small piece of tape over the microphone is really not a good option for me.

For now I will use this new way of holding the phone until Apple can fix this issue.

I have had this same issue and have finally resolved it. There is a noice cancellation microphone on the back top of the iPhone 5s. If you speak with your mouth even slightly directed toward the phone, the noice cancellation mic will think your voice is just noice and cancel it out. If I hold the phone directly to my ear with my cheek up against the phone and my mouth pointing outward like a normal person then all is good. I just typically like to hold the phone like an inch away from the phone and that is bad. You can hold it anyway you want if you press your finger over the little mic hole on the top back of the phone or if you put it in speaker phone mode then the noice cancellation feature disables. There is a setting to turn noice cancellation off, but it doesn't actually do anything for me. Oh well, gotta hold the phone normal now.

Update :

Provider : Telus

Number of Iphone5 in our compagny : 75

Issue : only occurs between Iphone5 . Doesnt occur between iphone5 to iphone4 or other cell ou landline

Troubleshooting done : Everything ! lte to 3g , audio mode modification , try with the ear phone , new beta ios , restore .

All our iphone are brand new out of the box....

Our explication for now : Iphone 5 use the wonderfull technology of HD-Calling . Hd calling is a new feature on iphone 5 . The basic of it is that the network and the iphone will use another codec to process the voice. The codec is just using more bandwith to make the call more clear and precise. When that technology really work , you can really see ear the difference.

Bell and Telus may share the same tower , but after the tower they have their own network !

Our final test : 5 iphone on 75 are unlock from telus .

Test 1 : 2 unlock Iphone5 on telus try to call each other ( first test LTE , second 3G )

Result : call quality suck

Test 2 :

Same 2 unlock iphone5 but we put a bell sim card in ....

Result : wow , call quality more than perfect . Way improve compare to iphone 4

Result final : Most likely the problem is on the provider side. To me it sound a network problem or telus is simply using another codec that doesnt work very well with iphone5.

Either way , it sound to me that the issue could be resolve by 2 front : either telus fix something on the network or apple fix the way the iphone5 work with that specific codec .

For now : telus has escalate the issue to their tier3 .

Hope this help...

Patrice

( sorry for my bad english , i am french canadian )

I've had the same problem. I'm left handed and place the phone on the left side of my face , with my left hand. When I talk on the left side of my face, I received many complaints from the people I'm speaking to that I sound muffled; to the point where they ask me to repeat things over, want me to call them back b/c of the bad connection and complaints about trying to listen very hard to understand what I'm saying. I up graded to an iphone 5S about 2 months ago after using an iphone 4S for 2 years. 4S worked great! No issues of a muffled sound [on either side of face when speaking]. I have gone thru 4 [YES, 4 different 5S iphones!] iphone 5S phones to try and solve this problem; thinking maybe I'm getting some bad 5S phones. But thru this course of trying different 5S phones, I have determined that the issue is when I speak on the left side of my face, it sounds muffled to poeple I talk to . When I switch to the right side of my face, many people I'm talking to have said I sound clear , 100% better. Even in the course of convesation, when I move the 5S phone from the left side of my face to the right side, the people I'm talking to will interrupt me and say " hey you sound much cleare now." This is without me saying anything to them about sounding muffled. I thought the 5S was a great phone, that is why I went thru 4 of them to try and find 1 that worked for me but no dice. One thing I know is that the speaker and microphone placement on the bottom of the 4S compared to the 5S is the exact opposite. I beleive this may be the issue. I'm using a different brand phone now but I'm going to switch back to the 4S. I think it is a better operating system than what I'm using now.

I had the same muffling sound problem with my iPhone 5S. My phone is in a leather case, and when using the phone I folded the case around and on the back of the phone when using it. This obviously blocked the back microphone (the one near the camera) and causing the sound problem.

Do you use any kind of case? If so does it block the rear microphone or obstruct the bottom left grill at all?

I upgraded last week from a 4s to a 5s. Immediately I had people complain that they could not understand me; that I sounded muffled and or in a barrel. I had NEVER had ANYONE tell me this when I used my 4s.

Yesterday I went to the local Verizon store and they tested one call and verified the issue. They then exchanged a new phone with me. I later made calls to the same people above and they said it still sounded the same.

BUT; this morning I made a call to one of them and it was clear as a bell! I started checking and realized I had my "Silent Mode" switch off. I normally keep it on Silent at work. So I test called with the switch both ways and at least in my case it appears to be related to this Silent Mode on the 5s. (And with some background noise)

Has anyone else noticed this?

The thing that has seemed to work for me is putting my finger over the noise canceling mic on the back by the camera. No settings changes helped. Don't waste your time back at the Genius Bar, it will just further your aggravation. I swapped phones and still no fix.

I've been just using my phone in speaker phone mode to get around the issue because I can't seem to retrain my self to hold the phone like I should. I'm also planning on getting a bluetooth ear piece because i'm sure that would resolve the issue also since i'm no longer relying on the phone's mic/speaker.

I'm glad I found this thread. Although I'm right handed, I always hold the phone to my left ear, and I constantly get feedback that the phone sounds muffled. I'll try switching to the right ear, since nothing else has worked.

A shame the iPhone is so good at everything other than being a phone.

Hi ,

Same issue here !

Provider : Telus

Iphone 5 : We just ordered 75 iphones , so far ,issue happen with all of them no matter how hard the signal is.

We have phone in montréal , québec , trois-rivière , same issue .

On 3g : the call quality is a bit improve but still call quality between Iphone5 are not acceptable.

The issue only happen when calling Iphone5 to Iphone5 . The sound get very poor, tunnel/robot sound a like . If an iphone5 call any other phone , no issue . We are not picky on the call quality but iphone 5 to iphone 5 is what we use the most.

Try to contact apple with our source but no luck . We are now asking Telus to just do the test for us and report the bug to apple on their own .

We will check as well if beta version of IOS is solving the isssue or not...

Patrice