This just developed on my Air. I have had this phone for one week now. Calling Apple.
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iPhone Air iPhone AIR speaker phone
- Thread starter empoweredtrader
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Same here - week of use and speaker sounds very clear and crisp.
Perfect for calls, FaceTime, voice mail retrieval, etc...
Haven't used it for media streaming - that is the job for either my EV Apple Carplay or my Studio Max Mac with Bose sound system.
You probably had it at alone. All of them do. Since it’s a single speakers the upper volume limit has been set higher by Apple. Pumping that much air through a small speaker will cause any speaker to distort at high volume.
Takes an ear to hear it.
Try taking a call on speaker phone, pump it to max volume. You’ll hear it crack or distorts on certain tones.
No I did not have it all along and even at a lower volume speaker phone or not I still have an issue. Apple tech said it could be the carrier.
It’s just the capability of the smaller speaker. You will notice harshness and a tinny quality at max volume and higher pitches. You’ll hear it different times because people speak differently. Listen to some voicemails and you can reproduce it.
If it makes you feel better, the pro and base phones also have this characteristic at times, albeit to a lesser degree. With the Air’s smaller mono speaker, any distortions are more obvious. Having stereo speakers creates a richer sound, particularly for music. For calls, it may help to remember that the speaker is at the very edge of the phone and placing that directly next to your ear hole is important since the volume is slightly less on the Air. For day-to-day notifications, most people won’t be too put off by the difference. Particularly if they don’t have both phones to do side-by-side comparisons like a psycho..
If it makes you feel better, the pro and base phones also have this characteristic at times, albeit to a lesser degree. With the Air’s smaller mono speaker, any distortions are more obvious. Having stereo speakers creates a richer sound, particularly for music. For calls, it may help to remember that the speaker is at the very edge of the phone and placing that directly next to your ear hole is important since the volume is slightly less on the Air. For day-to-day notifications, most people won’t be too put off by the difference. Particularly if they don’t have both phones to do side-by-side comparisons like a psycho..
This is my main deal breaker with the Air. I use the speaker phone a lot when driving my classic car.
I know I can just use AirPods and problem solved, and funnily enough I always use them when in a modern vehicle, but when in my old car I want to hear it and the experience is without AirPods for me.
I didn’t think I would care that much, but I do. So I’m sticking with my 15 PM another year, for as nice of an upgrade the 17 PM would be, I don’t see enough of an upgrade for my use case.
I know I can just use AirPods and problem solved, and funnily enough I always use them when in a modern vehicle, but when in my old car I want to hear it and the experience is without AirPods for me.
I didn’t think I would care that much, but I do. So I’m sticking with my 15 PM another year, for as nice of an upgrade the 17 PM would be, I don’t see enough of an upgrade for my use case.
The Air is a whole 10db quieter than the Pro. You wouldn't be able to make out anything if you were watching a show or on FaceTime while in the kitchen with the extractor fan on.
And I agree with Dave2D on that statement (I watched the video yesterday). But in all honesty, I couldn’t hear others while on speaker with my 15PM with the exhaust fan on either. Not that I’m trying to defend the Air, but just giving insight on the reality of it.
Yeah, I watched Dave2D's video prior to making the post. I don't think I would ever speak to someone on FaceTime with the extractor fan on but I certainly do have videos on and my regular 13 does a fine job of being loud enough to overcome the background noise. The Air (even the 8) would be too quiet for me at times.
so any chance this could be software related? im also experiencing this on my phone while doing facetime not that loud maybe 50%
The whole speaker discussion is overblown. First, not everyone is experiencing the crackling it seems. Also, if you put the volume 1 notch below max maybe the issue goes away and it's not that much of an audible difference.
If you are hard of hearing just get good headphones with ANC to help you focus on what's being said in a call.
BTW, most speakers when turned up to MAX volume will start sounding bad and distorting, even Bose speakers.
Outside of calls, people seem to freak out over the mono speaker as well. 90% of people are using the phones to scroll reels on IG or FB, or watch YouTube. All of these sound fine on the Air.
I have the 15 pro and the 16e as well as the Air, and I can't tell the audio difference when doing those activities.
It's possible you can hear a difference if doing a side by side comparison and looking out for the differences, but that's not reflective of real world usage. Most people don't put on IG reels and try to pay attention to the quality of the audio, they usually pay attention to what's being shown on the Reel. So if someone just picks up the phone, without being primed to listen for quality differences, they will not notice a difference AT ALL.
It's like when people compare professional cameras by heavily zooming in on a photo sample and pointing out a few pixels off to declare one is better than another. But when a normal person sees both photos they will look the same.
As far as music quality and such, who uses their iPhone to play music to fill a room? If you want to have music in your room, the solution isn't to get better speakers on a phone, it is to buy an actual bluetooth speaker. Because even the best phone in the world is still going to sound like doggie doo doo when trying to fill a room with music.
If you are hard of hearing just get good headphones with ANC to help you focus on what's being said in a call.
BTW, most speakers when turned up to MAX volume will start sounding bad and distorting, even Bose speakers.
Outside of calls, people seem to freak out over the mono speaker as well. 90% of people are using the phones to scroll reels on IG or FB, or watch YouTube. All of these sound fine on the Air.
I have the 15 pro and the 16e as well as the Air, and I can't tell the audio difference when doing those activities.
It's possible you can hear a difference if doing a side by side comparison and looking out for the differences, but that's not reflective of real world usage. Most people don't put on IG reels and try to pay attention to the quality of the audio, they usually pay attention to what's being shown on the Reel. So if someone just picks up the phone, without being primed to listen for quality differences, they will not notice a difference AT ALL.
It's like when people compare professional cameras by heavily zooming in on a photo sample and pointing out a few pixels off to declare one is better than another. But when a normal person sees both photos they will look the same.
As far as music quality and such, who uses their iPhone to play music to fill a room? If you want to have music in your room, the solution isn't to get better speakers on a phone, it is to buy an actual bluetooth speaker. Because even the best phone in the world is still going to sound like doggie doo doo when trying to fill a room with music.
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Same here - mine is perfect - speaker sound is clear and crisp.
I love it that the sound fires from the front of the screen instead of the bottom/top edges.
yo could you listen to sunroof by nicky youre for me on max volume for 2 seconds and report back? Mine crackles
Hi all. Bought iPhone Air in a white color on 256 gb, not so long after start of the sales. Great device, but have the same issues with the speaker. Are you 100% sure, that it's a defect and new device will come without this issue? Because I read a lot of forums in a different languages, seems like all of the devices are affected by this issue and maybe it could be resolved with iOS update with reducing some frequencies or limiting power to speaker itself by Apple
It could. You can lower max volume in setting to be 70% and it doesnt do it anymore for me, except in facetime which is the most annoying. It starts to crackle for me on anything above 50% which is ridiculous. If im not in a super quiet place i have to increase volume and find it so annoying. Some people said they didnt have this problem. Anyway, idk if a lot of them are this way it seems like a major issue. I have an appointment at the apple store tomorrow for an exchange
Please write an update here tomorrow, if exchanged phone will have the same issue or not. I have already lowered maximum sound to 60% in settings, partially helps, but I think it's not a great solution for an Apple device. Apple should do smth on it's own for their users to use devices without these actions
I will. My sister got the air too so i wanted to check with her if hers did it also. Will facetime her tonight.
I mean could be software, but i tried to install 26.1 beta see if it fixed it but it didnt. I just dont want to wait until my 15 days return window is over so ill exchange and if it still does it ill wait for software update i guess...
The same for me, I have 7 days of return window left, but Air is so great device, that I don't want to return or even buy another iPhone from 17 lineup. Ask her maybe to listen some music on max volume, that you have issue on with ear close to speaker?
Do most people talk on Facetime or listen to music/play games on their iPhones using the built-in speakers most of time?