iPhone 7 Plus Phone Call Sound Quality

Apple keep deleting my posts, there is clearly great sensitivity over this problem!

Could I ask if anyone has had the call quality problem solved with a replacement phone?

Apple support are asking me to book an appointment at an Apple shop but there seems little point if new phone does not fix the problem.

replaced my 7+ still the same problem with voice quality

No resolve for me Andrew. Multiple attempts.

Yes. I worked directly through Apple to replace both my 7 Plus as well as my wife's which both had these sound issues on phone calls. Apple overnighted two new phones and I rest both from full backups on our computers.

THis solved the issue for both our phones. Guess we were the lucky ones.

Yes. I received a replacement phone on Tuesday evening (12/6/16). Did a restore from iTunes and it works great. I posted about this on page 14 (I think).

I'm glad it resolved your problems. I just read the entire thread, which I bet few people have actually done. Several things come to mind. First, this isn't about one problem. There are at least a half dozen different problems described. All have something to do with sound quality, but some are problems hearing on the phone, others are people on the other end having trouble hearing you. Some of them show up in voice memos, others do not. The bottom line is that there are 16 pages of posts at this time, but they aren't all about the same thing.

There are a number of posts, like yours, that say replacing the phone fixed the problem. And a number where it didn't. If replacing the phone fixed it then that problem was hardware.

Focusing on people at the other end having problems hearing you, very early on a number of people said removing a case, or leaving the noise cancellation microphone on the back uncovered fixed the problem. And others said that turning off noise cancellation improved the problem but didn't fix it. This makes sense, if you consider that some people said speaking close to the microphone fixed it. Noise cancellation works by comparing the sounds received by the primary and back microphones, and ignoring sounds that reach both microphones simultaneously. So if your voice is received equally by both it will be canceled. And if the back mic is covered it won't receive anything, so your voice is competing with background noise. This is equivalent to turning off noise cancellation. So a good first step is to see if removing the case helps. If it does you need to modify the case to not cover the back microphone, or get a different case. It may also be possible for Apple to refine the noise cancellation algorithm.

Turning off Voice over LTE fixed it for some users, especially with Verizon. When VoLTE first came out there were similar problems with it on other model phones, so this makes some sense. But it has to be turned off by the carrier, not just on the phone. Users noted that they didn't want to give up VoLTE; however, there is no benefit to VoLTE to the phone's user; it is only of benefit to the carrier, because it reduces the load on the analog network and allows all calls to be purely digital. This should not be an issue today, 2 years after VoLTE has been deployed, so I wouldn't consider this an acceptable fix.

Not sure if it was my post you responded to or jazztrp43 but to clarify the issues we were having involved both hearing others as well as other hearing us. In both instances with both phones we heard others and they heard us sounding like we were in a large empty barrel. On both ends you could also hear bleed over like a 3rd party was carrying on a conversation behind ours. This was frustrating on both ends of the calls. Both issues resolved for us and those on the other end with the replacements.

I responded to you, as noted by the forum software, but jazztrp43 was right under your post, so I intended it to be inclusive. And it's pretty clear that for you two at least it was a hardware problem.

I wonder how many of the other reported issues, especially regarding the remote end having sound problems, are related to having a case not designed specifically for the 7+ with an opening for the noise cancellation microphone. If that mic was covered it would have the effect described.

Great post!

I have the problem where people on other end cant hear me if i cover rear mic with something.

I've kept my phone hoping for a sw update since it should be in the noise cancellation algoritm.

I use the Dallas case for 7+ where it is possible to have case on, and when on the phone with someone adjust the rear

The rear... flap a bit.

Works ok for now.

i just found the sound quality issue recently. people at the other end can not hear me at all sometimes, or the voice suddenly become very unclear. waiting for a solution.

tracyfang wrote:

i just found the sound quality issue recently. people at the other end can not hear me at all sometimes, or the voice suddenly become very unclear. waiting for a solution.

It's going to be a very long wait, unless you are proactive about it. What troubleshooting steps have you taken, based on the extensive advice already posted in this long message thread? For example:

• Do you have a case on the phone that covers the noise cancellation microphone on the back of the phone? Try removing it, and if that fixes the problem get a case designed specifically for the model you have.
• Have you tried turning off Phone Noise Cancellation in Settings/General/Accessibility or turning it on if it is off?
• Have you tried recording a voice memo, to see if it's clear or not? If it's not your phone has a bad microphone; take the phone to an Apple store where they can fix or replace it.
• Do you have the latest version of iOS? Go to Settings/General/About and look at the entire Version value. It should be (as of today) 10.1.1(14B150). If it is anything lower than this [for example, 10.1.1(14B100)] connect the phone to iTunes on your computer and update to the latest version.

If none of these make any difference make an appointment with Apple and either take it into a store or arrange for a priority exchange.

Lawrence, thanks for your input. I'm in the middle of some careful testing to try and identify the cause. I've setup a standard sound source, playing speech. I'm clamping the phone a fixed distance from the source loudspeaker in an attempt to eliminate all variables. I'll post a video of the results (although it'll probably get deleted from here as it will be a link to YouTube and that seems to get my posts deleted).

Do you know if the "Phone Noise Cancellation" setting in Settings > General > Accessibility > Hearing has any influence over how speech is processed during a phone call? Given the setting is under the "Hearing" section it tends to indicate it's only associated with 'playback' of the caller audio. I'm guessing they are generating anti-noise to help you hear the caller if you are in a noisy environment. I've tried both ON and OFF and struggle to detect any difference on my speech. This makes me think the option is for playback only. Any ideas on this setting?

It's not practical to cancel noise on the receiving end (except for headphones), so I assume the setting is for outgoing calls. Further evidence is the fact that there are posts saying that turning it off changed what the party on the other end heard. Normally noise cancellation works by comparing the sound reaching the primary microphone and the secondary, and attempting to cancel any sounds that are near the same volume on both. If you are in a quiet environment there should be no difference between on and off, unless you are speaking far away from the primary mic and your voice is reaching both. In a noisy environment you should hear a significant difference. As far as I can tell noise cancellation works only for phone calls; it is not used for video or voice memo recordings.

ADDENDUM: And thanks for bringing some logic to identifying the problem.

I think it's poor when it's abundantly clear there are various call quality issues with the iPhone 7 and 7+ which we're having to attempt to diagnose because Apple fail to recognise that something isn't right. I've owned a Samsung Galaxy S5, S6, S6 Edge, S7 and Note 7, the call quality on every one of them was fine yet I've owned an iphone 7, 7+ and replacement 7+ on all of them call quality is poor. You don't have to be Einstein to recognise the overwhelming evidence suggesting there is a call quality issue with these phones, the consensus of opinion is that it's a software related. If it wasn't an issue this thread wouldn't have grown to 17 pages and continues to grow. Before anyone asks I made the mistake of moving to the Iphone 7 followed by the 7+ after the Note 7 was discontinued due to the battery issue, if it wasn't for the battery issue it would have been the greatest phone I've owned by a mile. I have an Apple senior tech phoning me early next week to update me on the the poor call quality issue and whether the imminent release of IOS 10.2 will contain call quality improvements, the beta versions suggest not but that's not to say the final release won't.

As this thread is censored it reasonable to assume that it's being read by someone at Apple and irrespective of Apple continuing to deny the issue exists they are actually aware. I've spoken to Apple Support personnel who've admitted they would feel the same but Apple just won't acknowledge that there's an issue...