iPhone7 Bluetooth issue in the car

Greetings All,
I can confirm on my ATT iPhone 7 Plus

I had "non-connectivity" related Bluetooth Issue; Audio "Stuttering" "Sound drop outs" and "playback tempo speed-ups" constantly regardless of app or audio source.

By "Turning off LTE" under cellular setting, and only utilizing a 4G connection; after 48 hours of testing, ALL Audio quality issues over Bluetooth has ceased.

To be clear, I never had connectivity issues, only audio playback issues regardless if media content was stored internally on the phone or streamed over cellular or wi-fi signals.

Luckily, I don't miss the LTE all that much.

Good luck to everyone out there with these Bluetooth issues!

A great deal of us have had limited improvement by disabling LTE, but - let me be clear - this is not an acceptable or complete workaround by any means. I shouldn't have to deal with network slowness or toggling a radio just to get my audio streaming to work.

I am now on day 55 of my open case with Apple :(

FYI, I posted in here awhile back that my issue had been solved because it had been working for a few days. This is NOT the case, and this is still a major problem. It happens just about every day now - my phone fails to pair with my Kia Optima, and I have to delete my phone from my car and re-pair it for it to work. And it will still occasionally disconnect while driving.

Very frustrating that there is still not a fix.

I have a 2013 Optima and had the same issues as welll but with the latest Update it went away. Does it ever connect

iphone 7 Plus (Verizon). Infiniti G37. Talk works but issue is with Audio. Same playback issues as reported here. Turning off LTE did not fix issue. No choice but to connect via Aux. This is not optimal because phone doesn't charge via Aux and also I don't hear iPhone alerts when plugged into aux docket connector. I hear alerts when streaming via bluetooth. Hope this gets fixed soon because I just sold my 6 Plus so using that for music instead is no longer an option.

I too am having a similar issue since upgrading from my 6s plus to my 7 plus. I have a 2012 Nissan Maxima and since upgrading to the 7 plus when trying to use my phone through the Bluetooth system in my car the phone calls cut out so bad I cannot carry on a conversation. If I use just the speakerphone on the phone it works fine. Never had any issues with either 6 I had. I was using IOS 10 on my 6 plus that worked perfectly.

It is very annoying not being able to use my Bluetooth to make calls and have a conversation because I commute 2 hours per day in my car.

I figured I should add my $0.02 on this issue. I have an AT&T (128GB) iPhone 7 Plus and have been experiencing audio "stuttering" and "sound drop outs" while using Bluetooth audio pretty consistently regardless of the app or audio source, but it seems to be much worse and prevalent when connected to my 2015 Honda Civic Si's head unit.

I tried disabling LTE and only utilizing a 4G connection and the issue seems to be resolved. Thanks to SuperCBOW for this workaround!

However, I think it's totally rotten that Apple has basically not even acknowledged this issue or that a fix is being worked on. If I had known this would be a problem, I would probably not have upgraded to the 7 Plus from my 6S Plus.

I have the same issue with my Subaru. Bluetooth cuts in and out all the time and it didn't with my iPhone 6. Using the USB in the car works great for music but I can't have it playing music on that and Bluetooth connected at the same time. It gets mad and won't play even though you can select the dock connector as the playback device.

Basically I can't use hands free and listen to music. It's one or the other.

I'm really frustrated with this.

I too am an At&t iPhone 7+ 128GB user and can confirm as of today that disabling LTE resolves MOST bluetooth stuttering, lag, skip, static, etc. issues that I have been experiencing in two different vehicles as well as on my bluetooth portable speaker.

I agree that this is completely unacceptable and a disgrace that this bug even made it through production let at alone months after the official release, however, that being said, for anyone out there still wondering if there's a workaround, disabling LTE does indeed clear up most issues. I still get a little bit of stutter every now and then but no where near as bad as it was with LTE enabled. Putting your phone into airplane mode and then manually turning on wifi and bluetooth will accomplish the same thing.

I would assume that this would work for all GSM cellular devices.

Has anyone heard anything from Apple about what they intend to do to permanently fix this issue?

I have been reporting the issue with Feedback Assistant since the first iOS 10 beta. Nothing has been done so far.

After four hours of talking to Apple support and Lexus support, Lexus was able to help me. My previous iphone was paired in my car so I had to unpair the OLD iphone from my car and then it let me pair my new iphone 7 plus.

All of the instructions I was given was to unpair it on my iphone but it wasn't on my iphone to unpair. I had to unpair it in my car.

Hope this helps someone else. Needless to say, I was very very frustrated for four hours.

This is likely not related to the issue that others are having.

I've tried three phones in five cars, three of which did not have the old phone paired. This thread is not related to an issue with other devices, but with the iPhone itself.

My case with Apple has officially been open for two months with no resolution as of today.

Every time I talk with Apple, even the reps that I've dealt with before, it's the same runaround again. I explain the issue and that I've troubleshot it multiple times using the same steps, and then they review the case notes to find that it's true. It's always "I'll have to check with the engineers" and a promise to call me back, which never is followed through on.

So incredibly frustrated with Apple's support team and both their lack of communication, as well as involvement in this issue. Someone needs to take ownership of it and resolve the problem.

I live in Italy and have the exact same stuttering problem. Both with an Alpine and Pioneer receiver. I'm on Iphone 7+ ios 10.1.1

Gonna try disabling LTE today and report if anything changes.

Such malfunctioning is unacceptable for a 1k€ device

I own a iPhone 7 Plus, Matte Black 128gb AT&T Model Phone. I have had the worst experience with the BlueTooth "audio drops" and "sound cuts outs" over the past two weeks. About two weeks ago I purchased a phone mount for my phone. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GERTHO2/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&ps c=1 It was a magnet type mount. Upon setting my phone on the mount the Audio drop outs was worth then before. I restarted my iPhone and it helped, but they cut outs were happening quite a bit. I took the phone into Apple, they had me reset my network settings and then forget my iPhone on my Ford Sync and then add it back.

This did not help. I came back the following day and Apple replaced my iPhone. This still occurred. What I did discover was that when the metal plate attached to my case was removed the drop outs virtually disappeared. I had suspected that interference of my iPhones cellular radio was causing the issue. I can tell you that I removed the case from he phone and tested the metal plate issue and each time I moved the metal plate close to the phone, things just went nuts. I concluded that the mount was a problem.

This week I ordered a new mount that was plastic and clamped onto the phone. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017HME9AU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UT F8&psc=1 Now the mount is mostly made of plastic, but there are some metal screws in the mount and I experience the same drop outs. Reading through the 18 pages of this thread I will test out "turning off LTE" tomorrow.

I can compare this level of hardware issue in the new iPhone 7 to that of the Galaxy Note 7. Though the phones are not lighting on fire there is something definitely wrong with them. At this point I suspect there will not be a recall, because Apple will not admit it is their fault but rather the car's audio system being outdated or some weird issue.

With that said, I think Apple tipped that there was an issue as it delayed the release of its AirPods. I am willing to bet that this issue we have all been experiencing is present the AirPods. I think that at this point Apple is working to resolve this issue. If as some has mentioned that this is on both the CDMA and GMM models of phones, this could be a total disaster for Apple.

If the turning off LTE thing does not resolve my issue I will contact Customer Relations and demand a refund. I will downgrade back to a 6s and wait this out. In fact I have pondered testing an Android phone. I am totally frustrated by this as Audio is probably the thing I love most about my iPhone.