Here to voice my experience and extreme dissatisfaction with Apple regarding this iPhone SE debacle.
Have not had an Apple product since iPhone 3 & iPad 3. iPhone SE looked exactly like what I needed for my elderly father and I so I purchased 2. My old Apple stuff seemed to work well enough.
Issues like this were the last thing on my mind after using many BlackBerry phones, and one Samsung phone over many years. In every case, the bluetooth was FLAWLESS with many devices and vehicles. In fact, I travel for business and routinely pair to bluetooth in all types of rental cars and never had any issue. All of my phone calls are on bluetooth, while in the office or while travelling.
After commissioning the first SE to run it through it's paces, immediately I noticed a problem in the car and on my headset. The audio was horrible and unusable, while if switching the call to the phone or speaker phone the call was fine.
Went back to the carrier. They directed me to Apple support. Apple support did acknowledge a problem and indicated they were looking into it. We went through many gyrations including resets, download log files and who know or who cares what else. I've been using cell phones of various types since the 90s and never heard of such baloney.
So then I was directed to the Apple store. Took a vacation day to drive an hour to an Apple store for an appointment. They were clueless and a waste of time. Went back to the carrier and dumped the phones.
Since then, I've been monitoring this defect in the media and forums like this. I wanted very much to purchase 2- 3 of these phones and likely would have once this problem had been addressed by Apple and it was clear a resolution was close at hand. I have been hoping to see Apple face this problem and TAKE CARE OF THE CUSTOMER. That is what I do in my business. And..., nothing but the sound of crickets chirping.
Instead, while the folks at Apple are very polite, the company totally dropped the ball in the testing and validation of this product. How in the world can a company globally roll our a product like this and fail to properly test and validate the product? Since then, multiple articles and threads like this on Apple's own forum have popped up. This has gone on for almost a month and Apple has done nothing to support their customer, both new and loyal ones. Heads need to roll.
Because of Apple, I am now out hours of time, gas for running around, a vacation day, and phone cases and screen protectors that I purchased for this phone. Shame on you Apple. Shame on you for putting out a product that was not properly tested and validated. Shame on your for wasting my time and resources.
I'm sure the moderators "Apple police" will be along to delete this post. However, there is no other forum to let the management of this company know how displeased I am and what also sounds like the dissatisfaction of many, many other customers as well.
This is totally unacceptable.
