IPhone 3G S plagued by sound issues?
Are you enjoying your brand new iPhone 3G S? Did you get a 16GB or a 32GB? Well, that won’t matter if people are experiencing what we are. There seems to a problem with sound files on the 3G S and the result after they’re triggered. After they are done playing — like the unlock sound, SMS sound, for instance — the iPhone emits a high-frequency tone. No, we’re not kidding. Something pretty high around 15KHz. We’ve confirmed this isn’t a local isolated issue with our phone, and since some people can’t hear these types of high-pitched tones, your iPhone might produce it yet you’d never notice.
We’re 99% sure it’s software related because if you set the phone to vibrate, big surprise, no high-pitched tone. So, anyone out there experiencing this? It’s amazing this was skipped over in the many reviews published, but oh well. Hopefully Apple fixes it soon because this is kind of painful and pretty outrageous. Hit us up and let us know!
yep mine makes those noises after the lock and after sending sms. like stated above you have to put your ear on the speaker to hear it.
huh….didn’t notice it until I held the phone up to my ear, but it definitely does make a ~3sec high pitched sound after the sound file is completed. Curiously, the unlock sound is followed by a lower pitched sound, while the lock-click is followed by a higher pitched sound.
Mine ends in 3NS and it does have the whine. Perhaps your friend just can’t hear the frequencies, or perhaps his volume isn’t set to max (it doesn’t appear to show itself unless volume is at max).
I get the high pitch noise when I dial a phone number. What should we do? Take it back and exchange?
Mine has the sound and the SN ends in 3NR like Mike’s and his friend’s.
Have iPhone 3G with os 3.0. No sound on mine, and I can hear 15Khz sound.
Yep, noticed it on my iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G S is fine so far,
My 32gb black 3GS has the sound as well. I’ve noticed it on the following sounds/functions:
1. at the end of the locking noise (but not unlock for some reason)
2. at the end of several of the built in sounds (horn, glass…)
3. when recording video the high pitch sound is present during the entire recording (it can then be heard in playback of the video)
The high pitch noise is not present while playing music. Nor does it happen after other built in sounds (ex. tri-tone; bell; electronic). I have not heard it after any of the built in ringtones either.
I will check my friend’s 3GS later and see if his makes the same noise. I’m interested to see if the 3G made similar noises and we just didn’t notice or if is 3.0 related as many have said?
“The S in 3GS actually either stands for ’stop-gap’ or ’should have been’ (as in ‘the phone the first 3G should have been)”
Noticed it only after reading about it and putting my ear right next to the speaker. So I wouldn’t say exactly “plagued”, but yep, it’s there.
LOLOLOLOL. I have had a Windows Mobile phone since 2003 that has recorded video, sent and received through bluetooth, sent picture messages, had voice recognition, and voice recording, as well as a plethora of other features. I had an iphone for four months and got rid of it.
If my phone made an intolerable noise when I used it after months of prototyping I would immediately return it. What a shabby job.
Son of a…much like the other posters I can hear it now. So has it been established that it’s a hardware issue?
From the apple discussion boards…
“I am not sure if this is accurate, but I heard that in your iPhone serial #, the far left 3 digits refer to the factory where it was made, and the next two digits (4 and 5) from the left are the build week. So a serial # starting with 88925 was built during week 25 of this year at a location that can be told from 889 (or some part of 889)
Not sure what the NS and NR mean, but they are pretty common in all the serial #’s. Maybe the middle 4 digits (to the left of NR/NS) are the unique identifier….just a guess. Trying to figure out any commonalities here! “
Yep…add me to the list…my black 3GS 32GB has this issue after locking.
I hear it too when ever I lock it
Yes, I hear the high pitch whine. It is the same as the whine heard after various built in sounds. You can also hear the whine during video playback
I haven’t checked video playback on a computer though…
I went to Best Buy today to listen to some other phones. I found that 2 out of 3 workers’ phones made the noise while 1 did not. I checked the serial number of the one that did not and the last two letters were NS. The others that made the noise (plus mine) were NR.
Any NS folks have the sound?
I have a 3gs last 2 numbers end in NP, when i send a txt message its soooo faint (jam my ear into speakers) if i didnt read this i would have never of heard it, i wonder if its always been there, has anybody actually talked with apple tech support to see if this has been addressed?
I fully expect this to be a software fix. Keep in mind that even though the upper level APIs are common between the various generations of the phone the audio hardware and low level drivers are different. Just the fact that switching to vibrate only mode eliminates the introduction of the tone is a telling sign that this is software related. The vibrate switch is not physically interrupting the speaker. It is just telling the software to enable/disable the speaker for certain events. For some reason the speaker channel is not always being turned off when it should be.
I got the same prob WITH vibrate only.
I’m not having any sound issues, but let me say either I got a faulty battery in this 3Gs, or it has some major drainage. I’m watching my battery drop 10-15% from just texting back and fourth for 5 min. Can anybody chime in and tell me if this sounds at all normal? All my settings are pretty much in battery save mode, like screen brightness, push email off, etc!
I can hear it, if i bring my ear close to the speakers.
I’ve had 3 replacements due to this issue and all of them have had the same high pitched noise. I hope this will be fixed with a software update.
I have my keyboard clicks activated and after typing a bit the clicks just stop all the sudden. Just like as I was typing this half way through they cut out and came back on. Anyone have this issue.
God damn it! I didn’t notice until after hearing his story, now I hear it every time it happens… I think it’s hardware though (kinda like the MBPs), because it sometimes happens during game play as well…
All
My serial ends in 3NP and is a 16GB Black. Mine also has the whine, most noticeable with the receiving of a new SMS when on the lock screen.
What is interesting is before I new this issue existed I was already aware of an issue as even from a distance it sounded like the built in sounds (SMS alert etc) were more scratchy or sounded like they resonated more than on the original 3G. Almost as if the sound was over amplified etc.