iPhone X call quality issues

I had almost the same issue except when I called someone they couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t hear them. I tried calling my phone with my mother’s and it was made clear that it was my phone (X) so I tried powering it off and turning it back on and it worked again. Hope this helps someone.

I was having the same problem as you. Then I discovered my new waterproof iPhone X case was what was causing the problem. No one could hear me and if they did they said it sounded so muffled. I remove the case and everyone says that it’s perfect now.

brenden dv clearly provided some excellent suggestions.

I also have an iPhone X and have used iPhones for many years without incident. I had a problem with the iPhone X and thought of a possible issue in my setup.

The problem occurred while I had Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling > Wi-Fi Calling on this iPhone set "On." After the difficult call, I checked my cellular carrier (AT&T) records of the call and learned that indeed the call was transacted as a Wi-Fi call. However, I was live-streaming at the time. So I think I may have gotten in my own way.

If I have a problem with a call in the future, and I am not in a very bad cellular reception area, I am going to see what happens if I turn off Wi-Fi calling.

Same issue with mine. Almost every call people complain that I sound like under water. No case, no film, or anything else. Noise cancellation set to off so as Wi-Fi phone call. To people clearly hear me I have to speak almost touching the mic and speak loudly. Then, everyone says... “oh, know I can hear you”. What s the deal? $1k for a phone that can’t make decent phone calls?

I just went to Apple today over the issue. I never had people tell me this when I was on iPhone 6 but now that I have the X everyone I talk to says I sound garbled or far away. I’m told I come in and out of clarity. I have had this issue speaking to other people on their iPhones before, but I just thought the person had the phone tucked in so the sound was muffled. Now I realize it’s the phone after googling the issue and seeing how many people notice. I went to Apple. The gentleman acknowledged this is a problem. They don’t really know what it is. It’s a bad thing to have a phone that you can’t make business calls on or talk to family members. Regardless he replaced my phone, the problem is the same. I went to sprint to see if it was carrier issues but it isn’t. So at this point all I can do is go back to Apple but it seems if there is no answer yet.

This really is beyond belief: the issue has existed ever since the iPhone 7 was introduced, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it still hasn’t been fixed.

There are two lengthy threads on the very same issue regarding the iPhone 7/7+, and now people are reporting the iPhone 8 and X suffer from the same bug.

The threads:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7681421?start=150&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7668964?start=435&tstart=0

Last January I first received my new iPhone 7, had it replaced twice (once by Vodafone here in the Netherlands, and subsequently by the Apple store itself, but people I call keep complaining about fading call volume and/or garbled or muffled sound.

Fed up with talking to Apple and Vodafone support staff, I finally decided to hand in the towel and got myself an iPhone 6S, which turns out to have none of the problems the iPhone 7, and apparently 8 and X as well, seem to suffer from.

One can only hope that next year they’ll manage to produce an iPhone that one can actually use as a phone.

I have had my iPhone X for just 2 weeks now and coming from a Huawei Mate 10 Pro I can definitely say the call quality is dreadful. I am being told constantly I sound muffled, tinny, to far away from the mic etc. So, I called Apple support who blamed my provider here in the UK, 3. To prove Apple wrong I grabbed my wife's Galaxy S8, my fathers Huawei P20 pro and my brothers Pixel 2 XL and tested my 3 sim and a giffgaff sim in all handsets and in my iPhone X. Funnily enough when using the Android devices call quality was crystal clear, with either sim yet with my iPhone X call quality was muffled and distant, my brother described it as listening to someone mumbling through a wet towel. My father tried his EE sim and we had the same results, poor iPhone X and great everything else. I then tried the same tests using a Samsung J3, a budget handset given me by work;

It has better call quality than my £1000 iPhone X.

At the end of the day it is the iPhone X, it's just terrible for calls.

I'm baffled at what to do next. My 14 return period passed yesterday and currently I'm sat here with my sim in a £119 budget phone and not my £1000 iPhone X.

Like sberman, I have an iPhone X with AT&T, and know others. I've never been told there is a problem hearing me, and I tend to use the phone for calls more than texts. Although email comes in a close second. It seems from your statement you received from Sprint that this could be a carrier issue, and not a phone issue, especially since the phone replacement exhibited the same behavior. In your Cellular settings, do you have LTE turned on for voice? Have you tried turning LTE off in an effort to test Sprint's network? This would force the phone to fall back on the older 3 or 4G network, and may help troubleshoot. Just a suggestion.

I've just returned my 8+ (rather than an X) over this and problems with Bluetooth. Bought it on Sunday to replace an ageing 5. Initially I was very happy until I had some Bluetooth issues so I exchanged it - but after starting to use it seriously for phone calls it just about everyone I called started to complain they were struggling to hear me at times and it sounded like, yes, as you've said I was underwater (their exact words). I called someone back after they complained they were struggling to hear me - who said "Wow - you've fixed that phone, sounds great now" - I said "Nope, I stuck the SIM back in my previous iPhone 5".

Decided that its best to return it while the return window was still open. Problem is, now what? I was thinking about an X but from reading the stuff here, it sounds like its the same with the X? It's got to be software hasn't it?

My issues seems to have been resolved. At the Apple genius bar, they resent my wifi which erased all my saved wifi passwords (yes, it is a pain to enter them all again). I had already switched to WIFI calling when in a WIFI area that I am logged in to. Happy again here.

I notice that if you have the phone with an angle about 15-30 degrees from the face the other person can't hear you, if you align the phone over again it clear the problem.

Well I made my third trip to the Genius Bar today and they replaced my iPhone X with a new one. So far the call sound quality is working properly. Stay tuned I'll let you know if it last.

Who is your service provider? I went to sprint and the guy at the tech support desk told me sprint can’t handle the new iPhone X. At this point I don’t know what the problem is but I know I have an 1100 dollar paper weight. I’m so aggravated. I spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple trying to fix the problem. They were very pleasant even tho the issue is still here. Sprint on the other hand is unable to help me... all they have done is blame Apple. I spent over 2 hours on the phone with sprint after I went to the store to see if I could get the problem resolved. I’d love to know if people with Verizon have this issue too.

You'll find it happens with quite a few cases. Why should you have to be selective on what case you use on a high end expensive mobile phone. I replaced my 7+ which was replaced due to poor call quality with a Galaxy Note 8 because the replacement had the same fault. I can use any case on the Note 8 and call quality is fine. Having fought Apple for a year over this experiencing their absolute denial that their phone is faulty I'm amazed at how they've brainwashed so many owners into believing it's anything but Apple's fault. If a case which is mostly plastic or leather affects call quality the phone is faulty it's as easy as that.

Apple Europe is based in Ireland, one of their senior technical managers called me to discus the issue. I asked him to call me on my 7+ which he did and could hardly hear me. Call quality improved when I moved my mouth as close as possible to the phone. The biggest improvement occurred when I closed my flip case so it wasn't folded around the back. He made arrangements to have my 7+ diagnosed by remote access after I sent them a diagnostic log. They denied doing anything whilst accessing my phone but afterwards call quality improved but not to a level expected of a high end phone. The outcome was they claimed they couldn't find anything wrong and offered to replace my 7+ again which I turned down as the first replacement achieved nothing. I realised how bad things had become when I moved to a Galaxy Note 8 and I continued to ask if people could here me OK every call, a habit I developed using the 7+ after so many people said they couldn't hear me properly.....