iPhone 16e Has a Bluetooth Audio Problem

[Adreitz]

I just upgraded to the 16e from the SE 2. I haven't had this issue with the 16e (I connect my phone to my car for Bluetooth audio when I'm driving, but don't regularly use speakers or headphones), but I HAVE seen this with my old SE 2. It would occasionally decide, for an entire drive, to go through cycles of pausing the audio, then playing for a second or two, then skipping forward by about the same amount of time, then playing, then pausing again. Next day, it would play with no issue. I'm not sure if this is the exact problem others are having or not, but it seems like an iOS issue, not a hardware problem.

The SE 2 did have a hardware audio issue -- its bottom internal speaker would produce a loud pop occasionally when using the phone while plugged in and charging. It would even happen with the audio muted. It was rare enough to not make the phone unusable (maybe every couple hours), but it was annoying.

 

[mxrider88]

It’s iOS 18. Since I installed it, in my work car I can’t use the AirPods if the car’s Bluetooth is connected. It keeps on switching randomly back and forth and you can’t select which device you want to use for audio output.
The whole system is messed up.
Hopefully with enough bad publicity they will wake up and get on top of things.

macOS and iOS turned into a piece of rubbish long long long ago.
There is not a single thing I do on macOS or iOS that I expect to work properly.
It’s a constant crossing fingers and troubleshooting.

Absolutely pathetic.

 

[svish]

Will be nice if Apple fixes the issue right away with a software update. Hopefully it will be resolved in 1 to 2 months.

 

[bice]

You’re holding it wrong.

This comment normally is too old to have a bearing on anything. But since Kuo brought up Jobs' handling of antenna-gate as a good example it is only fair to remember that the initial reaction from Jobs' Apple was denial and blaiming the users.

 

[mszilard]

iPhone 15 pro max, same issue. bluetooth streaming cuts out

 

[Boroughbloke]

Since one of the recent updates, my iPhone Pro has been doing this.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Been a repairman for a while, my rule is "never buy a NEW Apple product".
I mean, never buy the first iteration of some design, always the "S", the one that makes you say "wait, this looks like last year's model". The new ones will probably have some problem.
iPhone 4, antennagate, 4S fixed.
6, bendgate and touch broke easily, 6S fixed.
7, audio chip broke easily, 8 (basically a 7S) fixed.
With new designs, there's almost always new problems.
It was clear that this wasn't any refreshed phone like the SE, I was almost certain something weird would happen.

 

[menist]

I'm had this problem too. My AirPods 3 would disconnect and reconnects randomly. I returned it.

 

[brgjoe]

Wonder if this is an iOS 18 thing. I'm still on iOS 17 and haven't had any issues.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

I’m experiencing this as well.

I’ve had other generations of iPhones as well and it’s definitely not the same as what these users are describing.

Let’s say I’m playing a 3 minute song… it surely happens more times than I can remember. 10+ times with the phone just being idle.

I’ve done a complete reset without restoring a backup, but it’s persistent. I’ve also determined it’s a loss of Bluetooth connection - not a slowdown caused by an app or something like that.

 

[MacFarmer]

hm, I think this is iOS issue. I have iPhone Xs and is 18.3 and have the same BT issues with airpods.

 

[zarmanto]

Respectfully: for those of you who have stated you've experienced this problem on one device or another, can you please report back as to whether or not you had multiple accessories connected simultaneously at the time of the issue, as noted in the article?

(Personally, I use a 16PM and have not experienced this -- but I really only ever connect to a single Bluetooth accessory: my car.)

 

[BruiserB]

I have a 13 mini and have been having trouble with the bluetooth speaker I use around the house in the morning while I get ready for work. Sometimes it stops and then starts again in 5-10 seconds. Other times it has just stopped. I don't recall if it's done it since the update earlier this week. From the other reports here, it sounds more like this is an iOS issue.

I have several other accessories that connect at different times by Bluetooth including AppleWatches, Airpods, Keyboards, etc. I'm not sure if other devices have been connected at the same time when the issue happens or not. I'm not usually wearing my watch when it happens, but maybe it's connecting without being on my wrist?

 

[Surf760]

I was having this problem on my 15 Pro last weekend. Along with many other similar posts on this thread, sounds more like an OS issue

 

[Surf760]

Respectfully: for those of you who have stated you've experienced this problem on one device or another, can you please report back as to whether or not you had multiple accessories connected simultaneously at the time of the issue, as noted in the article?

(Personally, I use a 16PM and have not experienced this -- but I really only ever connect to a single Bluetooth accessory: my car.)

Yes this was happening only while connected to multiple devices (a denon AVR and a Sonos move).

 

[CarAnalogy]

Is this really an iPhone 16e issue and not an iOS 18 issue? When I'm listening to audio via bluetooth on my iPhone 14 with iOS 18.3.1 the audio would sometimes cut out (bluetooth earbuds would disconnect) and I'd have to re-pair/reconnect them to the iPhone. I didn't have this isuse with iOS 17 and so far I haven't experienced this with iOS 18.3.2

Anecdotally same. Noticed Bluetooth cutout issues with multiple devices that have been fine and all of them recently having similar issue.

 

[kevinroy]

Happens in the car all the time on 16 PM I was samsung before it never did this, only phone thats ever done this, drops the bluetooth then 3 sec later it picks it up then drops again to the point you cant use it.

 

[SactoGuy18]

The multiple Bluetooth device connection issue (for me) has been around since 2020, when I tried to connect the Beats Flex headphones to my iPhone 12 when the iPhone 12 was connected to my car via Bluetooth and it caused all kinds of connectivity problems. This is why I usually connect only ONE Bluetooth device to my iPhone, even on my iPhone 16 Plus.

I'd recommend using an Apple or Beats wireless that uses the W1, H1 or H2 wireless chip (for now) and see if that kind of helps.

 

[balupton]

The multiple vs single is a dead end, or a seperate issue to that which iphone 16e users are reporting. Many reports of people having this issue with only a single bluetooth device connected and only a single bluetooth device paired.

To be clear, the iphone 16e issue is not just pausing or disconnections, which does happen, but stuttering and distortions of audio for like half a second multiple times every few minutes. Happens with a single device connected and paired, happens indoor and outdoor. Note that if you are using airpods and have conversation awareness on and continue to talk then your audio will actually pause not just go quiet until you stop talking then it will play again, in case some users are confusing that.

It is also not just an ios 18 issue, as many devices can upgrade to ios 18 and not have an issue. My iphone 11 pro and a family member's iphone se 2022 never had these issues; but we did have these issues on the iphone 16e.

Also the iphone 16e can pair to some specific devices, even with multiple and not have an issue with those specific devices, despite having issues with other devices.

At this point, it seems at least one of the issues, seems purely related to how iOS 18 on devices with newer bluetooth versions than 5.0 interact with audio devices that are also a newer bluetooth version.

See the apple discussion for more detailed debugging from users and my earlier post about my experience.

It could be there are multiple separate bluetooth audio issues affecting all newer iPhone models, and also multiple separate bluetooth audio issues also affecting the iphone 16e.

 

[funkboy]

This could be something as simple as iOS 18 having incorrect Bluetooth bitpool parameters.

Using Bluetooth stereo headphones with a Mac or iPhone

Ars digs into the nitty gritty details on using a Bluetooth stereo headphone …

arstechnica.com

Basically, this setting controls how much radio goodput the Mac requires when streaming audio to Bluetooth devices.
Set it too low (for good stability) & the encoding quality suffers.
Set it too high (for good quality) & the link overruns the buffer when there's too much radio interference, causing dropouts. Also higher settings increase latency, which is not a problem for music but at extreme settings it can be noticieable & irritating for interactive applications like voice calls & especially gaming.

It's also possible that it's CPU-related with all the new ML stuff they've added recently. Audio & the Bluetooth subsystem it uses *must* run as a non-preemptable real-time thread. The ML stuff is heavily resource intensive & uses a whole lot of different parts of the SoC to do what it does. It might not even be competing directly for CPU threads; it could be pulling power or memory or I/O bandwidth away from the CPU cores running the audio & BT threads.

 

[FredTX92]

Will be nice if Apple fixes the issue right away with a software update. Hopefully it will be resolved in 1 to 2 months.

They promised a fix for the 15 Pro issues in late 2023. They even sent me a replacement outside of my Apple Care due to the Bluetooth issues, and the phone still had the same issues.

 

[IkerTB]

Here's another one with problems... I have an Apple Watch 10, and I've had an iPhone SE 2016, SE 2020, and 13 mini, and I've never had any issues with Bluetooth. Today I got my new 16e, and when I connected it via Bluetooth to the car, I experienced constant dropouts (I also have it synced to the Apple Watch at the same time). Later, I was walking with my AirPods and when I missed a notification on my phone, the audio cut out (only that one time, with the car it cut out CONTINUOUSLY).

 

[IkerTB]

In iOS 18.4 RC my 16e's Bluetooth issues seem to have been fixed.

 

[ALW1026]

Im having blutooth issues in my car. Audio sounds low and muffled. Audio pauses goes in and out. I tried 16 pro, iPad mini, iPad pro 13. I figured it was the radio. Took the car to the dealer and he said its a apple problem. He puled out his Samsung phone and it played loud and clear with no stuttering. SMH. APPLE IF YOU LISTENING FIX IT!!!!!!!