Can iPhone ring when locked?

MacLady wrote:

The side button for sound is always on HIGH. And I'm not stupid, I know how to use the control center. The fact that it rang for some and not others made me think the global setting does not work and I had to set it for each caller which is a pain.

Take a deep breath. I did not say or mean that you were stupid. Many perfectly smart people accidentally hit the DND icon when swiping up on the Control Center, particularly if they do it with their right thumb. I would go so far as to say this verges on a design flaw.

You are not stupid. However, you are apparently new to at least some features of the iPhone, including the hardware mute switch. That's ok. We all have to start somewhere. .

Excuse me but I am not 'unfamiliar' with the hardware mute switch, it was on my last phone as well. This is not the first iPhone I've had either... I had a 4 and a 5.

I'm not ruling out the fact that if you don't have a thick case on your phone, it is quite possible that the switch gets moved to the mute position by accident. This cannot happen when you have for example a Griffin Defender encasing the phone as you have to reach into the opening with your fingernail to push it to the mute position.

If you are new to the iPhone 7, you may not yet have a case for it and if so, the mute switch sticks out and is vulnerable to being pushed by accident because the phone is so smooth and slippery.

MacLady wrote:

Excuse me but I am not 'unfamiliar' with the hardware mute switch, it was on my last phone as well. This is not the first iPhone I've had either... I had a 4 and a 5.

That was not at all clear when you got upset with Lawrence when he mentioned the hardware mute switch and insisted that Mute was not enabled in Accessibility. You will have to pardon my confusion.

You apparently have a chip on your shoulder. Why, I'm not interested in guessing. However, as all attempts to help you have been met with defensiveness, I'm going to bow out.

Have a nice day.

DoSomethingWithiTunesPlease wrote:

Did you find a solution? I have the same pr

AS there are several possible causes, there are several possible ways to resolve it. If you read the other messages in this 2 year old thread you will find a solution that works for you.

My solution was so silly when I saw what the issue was.

To the left of the phone is a switch. An on and off, you can switch that button, which is very easy to do, and turn the ringer off.

Switch it on and off (right above the volume key). It will show you if the ringer is silent or on. Hope this helps you. It can become frustrating.

I turned off everything in DND - turned off Manual, scheduled changed to "Allow calls from everyone" turned off repeated calls and left only when phone is locked checked. And now my phone finally rings on lock screen.

calaryn wrote:

I turned off everything in DND - turned off Manual, scheduled changed to "Allow calls from everyone" turned off repeated calls and left only when phone is locked checked. And now my phone finally rings on lock screen.

If you turn off DND, no other setting on that screen matters. When DND is off, the settings for DND just don't apply.

Turning off touch ID has helped somewhat.

When calling my iPhone 7 plus from another there is a long delay before it starts to ring. From my wife's mobile there are often call divert messages coming up which does raise the question again of it being all or partly carrier related.

I am not entirely sure that settings under manual in dnd have no effect when turned off on my phone! It was new yesterday and the whole experience has been extremely unpleasant.

To muddy the waters more my phone number was ported just today! I am going to speak to the carrier (Sky UK)tomorrow to see if the fault may lie with them, their predecessors or Apple or.................

We all know the likelihood of them all blaming each other although to be fair Sky were very good with my initial enquiry earlier today.

Mike.

mikefarnham wrote:

I am not entirely sure that settings under manual in dnd have no effect when turned off on my phone! It was new yesterday and the whole experience has been extremely unpleasant.

I am as I have tested it extensively both on my phone and on the phones of various clients.

TouchID also has nothing to do with whether or not the phone rings when locked (unless there is something seriously wrong with your phone).

It really sounds as if you're having carrier issues. One thing you might try is going to Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings. Sometimes when you change carriers, those settings don't seem to update properly. The only thing you'll lose are saved WiFi passwords so it's worth trying.

Thanks Idris. I appreciate your help.

I have tested extensively with my phone too and can confirm it receives calls much more reliably with touch off! I spoke to Albert who reminded me that scientifically the two events may, or may not, be related!! I do not rule out there being something wrong with my phone, albeit new, although it seemed to receive calls well enough yesterday before its number was 'ported.

Nevertheless I thank you for your suggestion of doing the reset as you suggest. I have been holding off on this one as I reckoned it was better to let the carrier make all the suggestions they could first in case the reset confused them or their systems. I reckon you may well be right but intend to cover myself as carefully as I can since, frankly, I don 't care if it is Apple, the carrier, or a bit of each. I will not be left holding the donkey.

One more call to Sky tomorrow to ask why the delay before ringing and the reset settings as you say. Frankly, Apple could stick their phone where the sun don't shine (I "loved" my Windows phone until it got stuck in flight mode but could drag and drop anything, set any tune to a ringtone and play my wma's... if I had bought a better one it would have been always listening but NOT played Skygo or read my texts...). The jury is out!

By the way this takes about 20 secs or more to ring from a landline which includes about 7 secs for the dialling tone. Mobile calls are about 10 secs quicker. I believe this may give an indication as to where the fault(s) lie.

Mike.

Yes it is Idris!!

It is 04.30 here in England and you Californians are probably not even in bed yet, let alone up early!!

I have just been for a walk round the corner to the park where my phone has four bars of signal not the two I usually have here indoors; sitting her as dawn breaks with three bars for some reason. Is the signal heightened due to lack of traffic on the network (and M25 or vice versa)?! Does weather play a part such as when my satellite signal disappears when it is stormy? Time from dialling my number on my wife's mobile to mine ringing about seven seconds. The seed began to germinate in the pub last night when the time was nearer ten seconds than the twenty or so experienced at home.

Anyway, the iPhone gets a second chance. I have spent two days trying to make it do what I want rather than pleasing itself. I knew it would be a struggle but think I underestimated the strength of the opposition. It really is a case of compromise between Windows and Android which have the advantage of being more manipulable (which I prefer) but being said to suffer from lack of reliability as a result and Apple which we hear is less liable to crashing (which I prefer too!).

At least I can watch my payTV when out now, voice dial my calls and have Siri read my texts. All I need to do now is spend hours converting my media and emailing myself photos because that appears the easiest way of getting one or two in. Perhaps Apple will grow on me?

Oh, happy days!

Mike.

Satellites are not involved with any cell phone, except for location services, which uses the GPS satellites plus local cell towers plus local Wi-Fi networks.

Your phone connects to cell towers for your calls. The carrier knows where you are because your phone periodically "calls home" to report its position. So if you move from one location to another that is covered by a different tower the network may take longer to find you when someone calls you. It will first try your last location, then try towers near that location, then continue expanding the search until it finds your phone. If it doesn't find it within 30 seconds it assumes that your phone is out of range or off and tells that to the caller.

If you are not moving around signal strength matters, as does network capacity. Each tower has a limited capacity for simultaneous calls. Once that limit is reached on your local tower the network will try to reach you on the next closest tower. There will be a delay of several seconds when this happens. And yes, cellular networks are in the microwave bands from 800 Mhz to 2100 Mhz, and are definitely affected by weather. You should see this in the number of dots displayed.

Thanks for your highly informative response Lawrence.

Are you able to proffer a reason as to why I could ring out but not receive calls? It was partly that which really threw me.

Your time spent in answering is much valued and appreciated.

Best wishes,

Mike.

When you make a call the network knows where you are immediately, because your phone contacts the tower it last heard from, and if it refuses the call it has a list of other recent towers, so there is little or no delay. Normally in an urban or suburban area there a 3 or more towers that you can connect to. If you have intermittent problems receiving calls it's probably just network overload, but it's a good idea to call your carrier's tech support and ask if there is anything that is not provisioned correctly on your account.

Our nearest carrier tower is 600m away although there is one half that distance belonging to another carrier. I know it is often possible to choose which service to connect to so will look into that when I find the right setting on the phone. Just looked and discovered that my current provider uses the same carrier as my last! Still worth a chat to my provider just in case there is anything they can tweak their end. Wonder what that might be? Not desperately worried since it is more important the mobile works elsewhere as I rarely hear it and advise prospective callers to dial the landline; showing my age!!

Mike.