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ghanwani

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
4,882
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I have an iPhone SE and have recently started having the following issue. When the speakerphone is OFF, the audio to the ear is very faint even though the volume is turned all the way up. When the speakerphone is ON, I can hear everything just fine.

Since the phone is out of warranty, if I schedule a visit to the genius bar, will they charge me for running diagnostics on the phone?

Any idea what the repair is likely to involve?

FWIW, I tried rebooting the phone but it didn't help at all.

Thanks.
 
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They normally don’t charge to run diagnostics but worth having an online chat session before. I think they are able to run some sort of remote diagnostic if you contact them.
 
Thanks. I ended up calling in yesterday and they just set up an appointment with the Genius Bar. They said they will first try to clean the phone and if that doesn’t help they will probably swap the unit for a fee.
 
They found the ear speaker to be defective and offered to change the screen which contains the speaker for $129.

I took them up on the offer and also requested a battery change for an additional $29.

While replacing the battery they broke the phone so the just gave me replacement. The phone they gave me had probably been sitting in the store over a year. Battery was dead and it's running 10.3.3.

I'm not able to login to icloud so I cannot restore the phone (error is Verification Failed -- There was an error connecting to the Apple ID server). Wifi and LTE are both enabled and I can surf the net with no problems. Software update is failing too, not sure if that requires a successful icloud sign in.

Since it's too late for Apple Support (close at 10 pm CT) I have to wait till tomorrow to start the restoration process.

Moral of the story -- don't leave the store till the device has been restored.

If you have any ideas for how to sign in to icloud before AM tomorrow, let me know. :)

Thanks.
 
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Just try to restore the device again and see if that makes a difference. Otherwise it’s Apple Store for you I’m afraid.
 
I got it working. Basically I was setting up touch id and passcode and that had been disabled on the old phone. When I tried to set it up without those, I was able to sign in to icloud, but I also needed to have my laptop open to authorize the sign in. Then I updated to 11.4.1 after which I reset the phone and restored from icloud. So the steps were:

- set up phone with same touch id/passcode as earlier one (i.e. both disabled in my case)
- sign in to icloud with laptop open to confirm the sign in
- update software from 10.3.3 to 11.4.1
- reset phone and settings so it prompts me to set up as new phone
- restore from icloud -- requires laptop to be open to confirm sign in
 
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