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Bug Iphone Cellphones Apple

iPhone X Owners Experience 'Crackling' or 'Buzzing' Sounds From Earpiece Speaker (macrumors.com) 104

Posted by EditorDavid from the hear-different dept.
MacRumors reports: A limited but increasing number of iPhone X owners claim to be experiencing so-called "crackling" or "buzzing" sounds emanating from the device's front-facing earpiece speaker at high or max volumes. Over two dozen users have said they are affected in a MacRumors discussion topic about the matter, while similar reports have surfaced on Twitter and Reddit since the iPhone X launched just over a week ago. On affected devices, the crackling sounds occur with any kind of audio playback, including phone calls, music, videos with sound, alarms, and ringtones. The issue doesn't appear to be limited to any specific iPhone X configuration or iOS version.
"The speakerphone for an $1100 phone should be at least as good as it was on the iPhone 6 and 7," complained one user, "but instead, it's crackly, edgy and buzzy."

"I believe we all knew the iPhone X would be highly scrutinized," writes Slashdot reader sqorbit, "but the reported problems appear to be stacking up."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

iPhone X Owners Experience 'Crackling' or 'Buzzing' Sounds From Earpiece Speaker More

iPhone X Owners Experience 'Crackling' or 'Buzzing' Sounds From Earpiece Speaker

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  • That... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Saturday November 18, 2017 @10:38AM (#55576643)
    That... is the sound of courage.

  • Maybe it's a piece of dust.

  • Once again iPhone is behind (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Blackberries had a buzz in the earpiece 10 years ago. They called it the Blackberry Buzz.

  • ... buy expensive toy, expensive toy does not make them happy.

    They blame the company which made the toy.

    Hey it reminds me of a song

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

     

      • Maybe the dawn of the $1000+ phone which is designed to be obsolete in a couple of years and need a bunch of dongles and/or new wireless headphones, a case and AppleCare to be viable means our society is in a Mobile Phone Event Horizon.

        • Maybe the dawn of the $1000+ phone which is designed to be obsolete in a couple of years and need a bunch of dongles and/or new wireless headphones, a case and AppleCare to be viable means our society is in a Mobile Phone Event Horizon.

          If that were true, they would be getting a little cheaper with every new product.

  • Let's talk about what to do about the problems at Apple, rather than just talking about the technical problems.

    This recent Slashdot discussion lists other indications of insufficient management at Apple: Should Apple find another CEO? [slashdot.org] One of the comments: More about recent management of Apple [slashdot.org]

  • Wise up!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You're listening to it wrong.

    • That's actually correct. The real story here is that iPhone X users, at least in these cases, are too stupid to turn their volume down a notch when the audio distorts due to the speaker being slightly overdrive. While this isn't ideal at least it can be fixed with a simple volume down press. If the amps were set too low then they would complain the sound wasn't loud enough, and in that case no button press could solve the issue.
      • People owning bluetooth headsets shouldn't be surprised it doesn't go loud enough.

  • Just do the math (Score:3)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Saturday November 18, 2017 @10:54AM (#55576721)

    the iPhone X should be at least as good as it was on the iPhone 6 and 7

    This is actually the ultimate hidden feature of the new phone: it's an X, that you replace with whatever number suits you. If you think the iPhone 6 was better, just apply "X = 5" to get immediately satisfied.

  • You get what you pay for (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I bought a Motorola 4G for less than $200 about 10 months ago. No crackling or buzzing yet. I'm sure that the new iphone is still superior. After all, Apple says that it is, and Apple would never mislead you for profit.

    • You have to wonder if 'you get what you pay for' is actually true.

      Consider. I buy a Motorola phone for $200. I don't expect much from it. The odds are I'm likely to be pleasantly surprised - even though it's cheap it's not actually not too bad. Especially if I'm replacing a phone that is a couple of years old. It might turn out to be a big step up. I feel like I got an unexpected bargain and I'm happy.

      The other option is I buy an iPhone X for $1000, plus some other stuff the people at the store managed to

    • This makes me wonder if the OnePlus 5T crackles or buzzes.

  • Over two dozen users affected! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Of the millions sold.

  • Haste makes waste (Score:3)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Saturday November 18, 2017 @10:56AM (#55576733)
    It seems as if Apple has been in too much of a rush lately. The iPhone was pushed out too quickly. It should have been held back, like the Apple's home eavesdropper^H^H^H^H^H^H speaker.

  • New apple slogan: It just whirs!

  • snap...crackle...buzz

  • Not just Apple, but It seems clear that many companies are now doing less and less even basic testing of products before they just push them out.
    its not really surprising in itself, As long as they can get away with it, but the really wierd thing I keep seeing is how so many consumers keep coming up with (ususally quite lame) excuses to cover for the companies even blatantly screwing consumers. Its clear that there's some wierd Stockholm Syndrome-like thing happening amongst many consumers where they just d

  • Overestimating (Score:3)

    by mr100percent ( 57156 ) on Saturday November 18, 2017 @11:55AM (#55577001) Homepage Journal

    Well over 10 million iPhone Xâ(TM)s shipped, but since there were 24 posts on a forum it must be a systematic problem with the entire line (as the headline and article imply)? Come on.

    • On that forum, among the subset of users who a) scrutinize their device and b) care enough to post about it.

      Shit the number of times I've had a problem with a device and decided to post on some forum about it stands at zero, despite a very long list of devices I've RMA'd for various faults over the years.

      This is especially important for a company which offers a bar full of "geniuses" to solve your problem. Why the hell would you sit and post on a forum?

      • Generally those who post on the Apple forums are tech-savvy people. Not people like my parents for example, hence they are more likely than the rest to report a problem. But let's pretend for every post there's 100 others with the same problem who never said anything. Heck, make it 1000. So, 12,000 devices with faulty speakers in a batch of 10,000,000 first-run models? Somewhat lower than average for any device actually.

        • Heck, make it 1000. So, 12,000 devices with faulty speakers in a batch of 10,000,000 first-run models? Somewhat lower than average for any device actually.

          And you dismiss 12000 customers as not a systematic problem? If you were running companies they'd never get that low to begin with. 12000 of the same issue is enough to bridge a variety of user related issues and points towards quality or design, and hence a problem that needs to be investigated.

          Mind you 12000 in the worlds most expensive and highest margin cell phone is ludicrous regardless of how many units are shipped.

          • They'd never get that low? Look at all the problems the Pixel phone has, they have a lot more than 12 complaints on their screen problems. Same with Samsung. Multiplying by 1000 is my attempt to be generous and give you benefit of the doubt, even so that would still only be a 00.12% failure rate, and since Apple is allowing everyone to swap their device at an Apple Store I don't think this is as big a deal as you claim.

  • Youâ(TM)re probably overdriving the speaker. With phones having to power over every other sound - like those people walking down the street with their phones on speaker - at some point you canâ(TM)t drive the coils in the speakers any harder and you get a buzzing or crackling sound at the peaks.

    Every amp has that âoeproblemâ if itâ(TM)s more powerful than the speaker it drives.

    Turn down your freaking phone, there is no reason to have your phone at maximum volume anywhere, hopefully

    • In this day and age it shouldn't be possible to over drive a speaker. The audio driver software should know what the limitations are. It should detect and over driven speaker and back off.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Misagon ( 1135 )

        It's actually the opposite. Cell phone speakers these days are so small that overdriving them is considered normal. The DSP in the audio codec/amplifier is supposed to compensate enough to avoid artefacts and to avoid damaging the speaker but it is walking a tight line.
        I was told this by engineers at Cirrus Logic, which makes audio chips for Apple and other cell phone manufacturers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Most speakers these days are overdriven, the DSP simply compresses the sound, which also results in a buzzing and crackling sound when you do it too much.

  • It just has to be some other nations fault with their new sonic spying.
    The sonic collection method has expanded from one US embassy to now include parts of the USA.
    With the loud noises, bizarre sounds, weird noises, odd sounds.
  • Apple heard about all these encryption problems due to lack of entropy, so they've decided to generate some noise to be super secure.
  • Apple just said to the (remaining) fanbois "Hey, still there?? we got you!!"

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