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It'll be interesting to find out how widespread this issue is and if Apple will ever come out and confirm what the actual cause it and what, if anything, they'll do about it.


If it gets enough attention and let's be honest it will because it's Apple. Every website, regardless of how unrelated to tech they are will have one of their hacks desperately groping for an excuse to report it.

So eventually they're probably going to have to make some sort of statement on it to quell the flames.
 



After the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus began arriving to the first round of pre-order customers on Friday, a few users noticed what's become known as a "hissing" sound emanating from the back of the device, where the Apple logo is located. The first reports began on Friday, but the occurrence gained ground when 512 Pixels' Stephen Hackett tweeted about it, posting a video with the "terrible noises" produced by his iPhone clearly audible, which he determined to be caused by heavy performance at the time.


When he brought the issue to AppleCare, Hackett was told to bring the iPhone into an Apple retail location to swap it out, but given the low stock of nearly all iPhone 7 models, that solution isn't particularly helpful at the moment. Friday night, a member of the MacRumors forums, liorgr, confirmed the somewhat "common" issue facing the iPhone 7, although it's still unknown as to whether the noise could come from all versions of the device, or if it's just "a faulty batch."
Since his tweet, more and more iPhone 7 users have come forward about the issue and corroborated Hackett's story. On the MacRumors forums, mentions of a "buzzing" and "static" sound coming from the back of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus began on Friday afternoon. Specifically, forum member maxlind noted that the noise happened on his 128GB iPhone 7 Plus under load, without charging or restoring from an iCloud backup.
One Redditor who got his iPhone 7 Plus replaced at an Apple store noticed immediately that his new iPhone was making a similar sound, so the issue could potentially be affecting a large number of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models due to the high-capacity performance abilities of the A10 chip. Since there are no actual moving components on the chip, it's still unclear what could be making the noise.

As pointed out by The Verge, the consensus of the noise's origin online is that it's caused by a phenomenon known as "coil noise."
Still, despite the problem slowly becoming infamous over the weekend, some sites tried to replicate the issue and failed. Using performance benchmark software 3D Mark "Ice Storm Extreme," Engadget ended up hearing "no hissing at all" on the 4.7-inch iPhone 7. As many users have theorized, the sound issue could "stem from a manufacturing issue instead of an inherent design quirk." Until Apple addresses the problem, that still leaves affected users to either deal with the noise, or attempt to get a replacement that could potentially face the same sound.

Article Link: iPhone 7 and 7 Plus Exhibiting 'Hissing' Noises Under Load for Some Users
Crap mine is doing it to. . Wait I think it's just my snake. . .wait I don't have a snake. . .or do I?
 
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Mine is arriving tomorrow all the way from China. I can't wait to be a part of "your're loading it wrong" and "hissgate"! :D
 
Now that it is waterproof there is internal increased air pressure from heating that must be released somewhere. It appears the least well sealed joint is the logo and the home button. Maybe they will pull future phones to a vacuum at the factory.

Next year they will eliminate the physical home button. I wonder how they will change how they do the logo?

If you have a hot phone and go underwater, that should cool it. Will it suck stuff in from the outside through the logo and button?
 
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Likely a quasi-stability in one of the SMPS modules, causing a resonance in one of the ceramic capacitors.

Am a electronic design engineer.
I'm a firmware engineer. I bug my electrical design counterpart about this all the time. Mostly to tease him about it. Sometimes I try to program parts to play different tones just to poke him more.

For our boards it usually crops up in the power supply circuits.
 
YES! My 7 does this too even if just watching videos on youtube, gets REAL hot too, will probably exchange it.
 
It's not just iPhones. I bought a couple of LED light fixtures with integrated power supplies -- same model and manufacturer as before. Unlike the older units, these new fixtures buzz like crazy and the apparent cause is the new, much thinner power module. Really disappointing -- the Chinese have managed to make LED light fixtures just as noisy and annoying as the old fluorescent ones with magnetic ballasts!
 
No one wants to be recording audio or video with hissing sounds. Cassettes and VHS are long gone. This needs to be resolved.

This is certainly interesting. Anyone here with technical experience with CPUs able to describe more in detail what would be making the processor sound like this?

If it's the CPU and not the GPU/HW encoding section then there would be no hiss while shooting a video.
 
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How ironic if this comes to be known as "noise gate", considering what a "noise gate" filter does in audio software. Maybe Apple should have twiddled their attack and release before shipping this phone!? :p
 
I have a Verizon 7+ that is doing it. Only noticed after reading this thread and listening extremely closely. Not going to bother me at this point.

Okay. I'm glad that it is doing it on a Verizon model too. I don't mean that as a personal assault, so please don't be offended. I'm just glad that it is not happening on the Intel mode models only.
 
I totally understand that this noise can be annoying, but it looks a bit like:

- This iPhone 7 has no flaw, we submerged it, we tried to break it, we even dropped it from 10 feet and the display did not even shutter. - What else can we do? .... *silence* ....*buzzzz* - Wait, did you hear that guys? Was this the iPhone 7?

The issue about having no coverage seems more severe: https://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/19/iphone-7-no-service-airplane-mode-issue/
 
If it's the CPU and not the GPU/HW encoding section then there would be no hiss while shooting a video.
I get a definite high pitched tone in my recorded videos if something is going on in the background on the phone. For example, if I reload a web page and then switch to camera and record a video while the web page is loading. Sound stops when the page finishes loading and then you just get the normal background noise. I tested this with an iPhone 6s+ and my 7+ side by side. You can hear the whine on the 7+. Then I swapped the video files between the phones and played them back again to account for different speaker design. Definitely hear the whine.

However, I have to force it to do something in the background to easily reproduce it. Under normal circumstances it would show up at random when it fetches mail or something, I would guess, but in my 3 10 second tests I've only heard it if I force it.

Edit: To be clear, I doubt this will actually affect my normal, non-fault finding usage. It's more of a curiosity for me at this point. I'll keep an eye on videos I take (an ear?) to see if it's a real problem.
 
I have a theory, the iPhone 7 is the true Slytherin heir...

first "iPhone 7" is a very unusual name for a phone, what does the number 7 remind you of? Horcruxes of course! Voldemort split his soul to seven pieces!

Second, apparently people (or muggles) are hearing "hiss" sounds, guys this is the iPhone speaking in parseltongue, calling its master...

Third, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus come in two new colors, what are the colors? Black and jet black! And voldemort always wears a black robe...

And lastly, The only new stock wallpaper in iOS 10 is a green waterfall, green is for slytherin.

Apple is slytherin, and the iPhone 7 is the slytherin heir.


Edit: OH AND ALSO, The apple, in the old testament was a tool the devil (THE SNAKE) used to lure eve into the sin! Apple! snake! Are you getting it???

Getting that you believe in magical apples and that snakes are demons
 
what app are you guys using to put it on heavy load to test this? Geek bench?
 
My black iPhone 7 256GB might have a very subtile hiss sound... but my ears are buzzing all day... so it doesn't bother me! ;-)

that said, I did a quick test recording a video in a quiet room... I do hear a tick-tick sound in the recording... but I have to listen very carefully with the maximum volume... I suppose that I won't even notice in my day-to-day usage.

I will see how this goes... and I might decide to exchange it later.
 
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