Poor voicemail playback quality after 2.1?

[Brandonsc]

Has anyone else noticed a decrease in voicemail playback quality? My visual voicemails sound awful. I've noticed it since updating to 2.1, but it may just be a coincidence.

[Ferrd]

I've noticed the same thing. I figured it was just me. The quality of the voicemails is like the sound quality of my first cell phone 10 years ago.

[Brandonsc]

I've noticed the same thing. I figured it was just me. The quality of the voicemails is like the sound quality of my first cell phone 10 years ago.

Exactly. It wasn't a big deal at first, but now its starting to drive me crazy.

[sv650s]

I have noticed the same thing since the 2.1 update, glad I'm not the only one. I've also noticed more app crashes (I had no crashes with 2.0.2), no difference in battery life, and my signal switches from 3G to EDGE and back for no reason, when I have a full 3G signal. The only real improvement I have seen from 2.1 is that apps download and install faster, and there seems to be less lag on the keyboard.

[aandf1978]

I too have noticed this and it is a great thing to know that it is not just another case of my iphone being messed up. I am on replacement number 2 with the 3G and number 5 with 1st gen. iPhone.

[Hey Jude]

I thought I was crazy but all of my callers sounded like they had a lisp and were underwater.

I, needless to say, hope there is a fix on the horizon for this.

Jude

[mets1125]

Im also having this problem..its annoying because I have to replay some messages :mad:

[msharpmu]

I almost posted this as well. My voicemail's sound like they are coming through 2 cans and some string. I hate this. I am glad to see that I am not the only one.

[Excellerator]

I have noticed this too but thought it was just me.

[iphoneuser8]

Yeah put me on the list. Since 2.1 voicemail quality has certainly changed. When listening to my voicemails after doing the 2.1 update I thought my friends were calling me from a poor voip connection or something. Check the voicemail quality of a friend's phone with 2.0.2 and it sounded very clear.

[milani]

Are you guys all on AT&T? I'm on Rogers in Canada and I don't think my voice mail quality has changed at all... I'll leave myself a voice message when my phone is done syncing and check for myself.

[adamrc]

I've also noticed that right after I updated to 2.1, the voicemail quality sounded much worse. Hopefully they will fix it in the next firmware release.

[ClassicBean]

It's for sure a Visual Voicemail problem. If I dial in regularly to check my voicemail, the messages sound fine but via VV they sound tinny.

[scrateef]

I've also had the voicemail problem. And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I took my problem to the Mac store and met with a Genius. They always seem to have the most destructive fixes...that never seem to do anything but inconvenience customers. Last week, they told me to do a restore and set the phone up as new (not use one of my backup profiles). So I did. Lost lots of information during the process and had to set up my phone from scratch. No improvement in voicemail quality.

So I went back today. This time they told me that I had to call AT&T and have them completely wipe out my voicemail. Erase all messages and make me set up the mailbox from scratch. So I did, and there's still no improvement in quality.

Of course, not everyone has this problem with 2.1, so I tend to think that it's hardware/firmware related, but Apple would never admit to that.

I love so many aspects of the phone, but this up-and-down performance is really getting old.

Anyway, I just wanted to post my experience in case you take your phone in to the store. The techs tend to check this site for known issues, and they need to understand that the problem is with their phone, and not AT&T's voicemail system. Having AT&T wipe out your voicemail will do nothing more than cause you to lose all your messages.

Good luck, everyone!

[TN-3]

Same thing here. Voicemail quality is terrible after 2.1.

[navigates]

Same here. What are your configurations.

Is it a bug introduced with Quickpwn? Can someone validate if this is the case without 2.1 quickpwn?

Additional Facts.

1. The Visual Voicemail is perfectly clear when used with a bluetooth headset 2. (Plantronics 925 now works with VVM)
3. The same robotic sound comes when listening to the Voicemail using Speaker
4. Checking Voicemail using the dialin number is still clear

[Oilbrnr]

I personally think that AT&T is now compressing the message more to lower the bandwidth used while retrieving the file.

[navigates]

I personally think that AT&T is now compressing the message more to lower the bandwidth used while retrieving the file.

I don't think so as if you listen to the message using your bluetooth headset, the voice quality is fine.

[Eminemdrdre00]

Same problem for me here on ATT!

[navigates]

I've posted my analysis on this thread:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=570093

Is there a workaround. Are any of you considering going back to 2.0.2

[navigates]

Can someone confirm if this occurs with Pandora as well. I believe this is not a widespread issue or rather people really aren't so detail oriented. However if this was a widespread issue we'd see lots of more people complaining.

[Robk5555]

I too am having the same voice mail problem. Also, I was told by a friend that my custom greeting sounded like my voice was 3 octaves higher than normal, so apparently, the problem is not only with listening to voicemail, but may have some problems with the custom greetings as well.

[mckandy]

I have the same problem since 2.1... Voicemail sounds really tinny and electronic. It's not a pwn-ed phone, either.

[dranakin]

Yeah, I dialed into my voicemail box and my messages sounded better than retrieving from Visual Voicemail.

[Sojourn]

When I bought my iPhone 3G, it had 2.0.1 installed, and I waited for a while to upgrade to 2.1 to make sure that there wasn't a serious risk of the update making anything worse; overall, my EDGE and 3G connections (both voice and data) had been great, and I hadn't had too many problems with the device. I was, however, looking forward to faster app installs, faster backups, less keyboard and contacts lag, better battery life, enhanced iPod functionality, etc., so I finally updated last night.

One of the first things I noticed this morning (other than some 3G data connection problems which I'm hoping are a coincidence, and not caused by the update) was this voicemail problem. It's horrible! As others have said, all voicemails (including ones that had been recorded before the update, that I still had on the phone) sound tinny and electronic -- not only is it awful to listen to, but it makes it more difficult to understand what is being said. I've tried listening both through the regular speaker on the phone and through my headphones, and they're both bad. Interestingly, it seemed like the sound quality was better when playing the messages on speakerphone, but upon further listening, it may just be that the overall tinnyness of speakerphone helps to mask the bad sounds of the now-tinny voicemails.

Has there been any progress on this issue? Has anyone found a way to fix it? Visual Voicemail is a favorite feature of mine when it comes to the phone functionality of the iPhone, and this really sucks the joy out of using it. Any help is very much appreciated.

Take care,
Sojourn

EDIT: So I poked around Apple's support forums a bit, and it sounds like there are a lot of users complaining about this over there, too. This thread (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8141461&#8141461) says that an Apple employee said that it will be fixed in 2.2. I'm hoping this has been recognized by Apple, as these forum posters say!

[sibruk]

I have this problem too since 2.1, and I'm in the UK. So it's not an AT&T network thing, it's a 2.1 thing. As somebody else has already said, it now means I have to listen to messages multiple times to try and work out what is being said through all the compression.