iPhone Xs Bluetooth audio quality

Hello from Germany.

Same Problem here with my iPhone SE and iOS 12.1.3 .

I am pretty annoyed about that, because I wanted to play music in the car without any cables and installed a bluetooth receiver (Grom Audio BT3) in my car. And now I have this ugly noise instead of music.

I also hear that it is because of bad bandwidth. If there is only one instrument playing, it gets all the bitrate and sounds kind of nice. But if voices and other instruments added to it, the bandwidth isn't enough anymore and the noise starts.

I also tried that workaround with disabling wifi. Switched it off in settings and also reconnected to the bluetooth receiver - didn't work for me.

I wonder, what could cause the problem, because bluetooth is not a new invention. There was a time when things were just working. Now there has to be every year a new software and everything needs to be different. The worst for me is - you are kind of forced to the new OS, because it is downloading and then annoying until you finally install it. Way back to old OS? not passible. What a pain.

I have contacted BMW US and Germany and gave me a support number, it's been a month so far. BMW indicated that the issue can be found in iPhones and car design and built to different locations. I bought my iPhone in US and my BMW is set to Brazil standards.

I‘m really asking myself, whether Apple is Even Reading in its own support section 🤔

Apple Support Communities exist to enable Apple users to help each other.

They are not an official conduit to Apple Support.

Contact - How to Contact Us - Apple

Feb 2019 and the problem persists. Since it does not seem to affect every car or speaker I assume it‘s a combination of iPhone (x/xs/8) and some bluetooth chpisets (which are used by many different car / speaker manufacturers). Someone would need to find out which chipset is used in the affected car models..

Other possibility would be that actually many more devices are affected but you just dont hear the quality drop on cheaper speakers. I have the Harman Kardon system in my 3 Series BMW and it’s just impossible to listen to music over BT with the quality going back and forth.

It still has to be something Apple has broken since the Problem did not exist up to iOS 11 and in older iPhones.

we got news boys. i contacted apple care and we did diagnostic files with audio captures. the engineers told the support, that the files were good and they had an idea whats going on. in one of the next releases they drop a fix.

Thats probably not related. For good audio quality over Bluetooth both the receiver and the transmitting device need to support either AAC or AptX codec. iPhones have AAC support and Android devices usually AptX. So if you’re streaming Bluetooth from an iPhone to an Android device the codecs are not compatible and transmission will fall back to the SBC codec which sounds terrible.

Hi,

I am experiencing the same issue with the high and low pitches missing, however the issue occurs for me when my IPhone X (iOS 12.2) is connected by wire to the stereo in my car and playing Spotify or ITunes.

I have a 2018 Audi A3 with a Audi Sound System. I got Audi to run an analysis and they didn’t find any issues in the car and told me that they think the issue is that the receiver is protecting the sound system from the signal coming from the phone and an issue with Apple CarPlay.

So it seems like the same issue, but with the difference that I seem to be the only one in this forum who experience it when using Bluetooth and also wired.

Hoping for a solution to the issue!

Wired or wireless, using the lightning to 3.5mm dongle or bluetooth, gives poor audio quality from my Xs MAX. I'm not sure when it started to occur, I assume from day 1 that i received my new phone. The music feels "flat". Now the gotcha: Using the 6s from my wife, and the music is plentyfull again. Got this issue when connected to my car radio (bluetooth), also when using monitors at home (wired). Again, issue is gone when using the 6s in both places... if you ask me, its hardware related...

Linking to the thread in the spotify community, which has more info on the issue.(in case any developers arrive)Bad Bluetooth sound quality iOS 12 - The Spotify Community

I got exactly the same issue on my iPhone X.

Has been happening since iOS12 beta 1

I have the same issue since installing iOS 12

with a Marantz NR receiver very noticeable and annoying, not happening with Bose QC 35 II nor the car as I am using Apple CarPlay with USB cable

Are these communities monitored by someone at Apple?

Not for technical issues; we are all just fellow Apple users here.

If you have an issue, report it here:

Feedback - iPhone - Apple

I‘m afraid no. Unless in a future update apple provides AptX support or android adds AAC support (won’t happen because of license fees).

Same here... they did ran tests on my phone and have been trying to follow up... unfortunately the issue is still there... frustrating. Question, is anyone experiencing the issue in other brands that are not BMW?

Hi. No it isn’t. But good news is that Apple called me today and they’re going to send an engineer to me very soon to figure out the problem. Say what you will about Apple, their service and response rate are the best in the business.