iPhone 5S Rear Microphone Causing Muffled/Quiet Voice Calls
Hi folks,
There are quite a few threads here about this issue - iPhone 5S (in my case 32GB grey) with iOS 7.0.4 - fresh install from factory - phone only a few days old - the Rear Microphone (just next to the rear camera) is causing major issues with voice quality for the person at the other end of the line. Outside of a case (naked phone), with the rear mic uncovered, your voice should sound perfectly clear to the other person, but put the phone in a case or cover that rear mic even slightly (and I do mean a TINY bit) and the voice quality suddenly drops dramatically and you sound distant and fuzzy, almost inaudible.
The case I'm using is really thin and the hole cut out around the rear cam and rear mic is easily large enough and not blocking them. But even those few mm of case thickness seem to be causing issues for the mic, and folding the front of the case round the back (for comfort) renders calls almost impossible for me.
I have tried disabling Phone Noise Cancellation but this has zero effect on the situation and the Rear Mic is still functioning (is this a bug in the latest 7.0.4?). I have also tried enabling Hearing Aid mode but this not only had no positive effect on my voice for the other person but actually made the other person almost inaudible to me! So neiher of us could hear eachother.
Conclusion? The Rear Mic has a problem . That problem may or may not be related to Phone Noise Cancellation. This may be an iOS (software) problem or a hardware problem. Either way it is a major problem.
My first upgrade since my iPhone 4 and I wish I hadn't bothered.... making and receiving calls with this 5S is a painful experience so far.
I've had this all but confirmed by Apple Support on the phone, and they confirmed that they've had several similar complaints. Their suggestion was to try a new case, but I can't see how that would help at all, or enough, since my current case has a very adequate hole for the rear mic area and I can't see any other cases having a larger space for this...
So, maybe we can have a show of hands for others suffering with this issue - and please remember to post your spec and setup so we can try to isolate the case of the issue! My hunch (and hope) is that it's a simple software issue that can be sorted, perhaps by properly disabling that Rear Mic (no setting I've found does this yet).
PC, Windows Vista, 64-bit
