In this video, we're going to show you how to fix the problem when you can't hear phone calls
on your iPhone unless you're using speakerphone. What? We want to highlight one thing before we
begin. In the phone app, if you have no other devices to make phone calls from,
you'll just see speaker. If there are other devices around, you'll have to tap the audio
button in the phone app and then tap speaker. It's a good way to make sure you're not playing
sound somewhere else when you want it to come out of the earpiece speaker. You probably knew
that already. The next step is a simple test for a software problem, and so we're going to try
making the phone call with another device and then switching it back to your iPhone. I'm going to
make a phone call using these XM4s. Noise canceling, so I'm going to leave one ear cup open.
I'm going to try calling John UpPhone first with the Bluetooth headphones.
I'm going to select Sony XM4s and then switch back to the iPhone earpiece and test to see if
that works. I'll tap audio and then I'll tap iPhone and hopefully that fixes the problem for
you. If it didn't or you don't have another Bluetooth device hanging around, the next step
is just to take it out of the case. A thick or bulky iPhone case could be covering up the earpiece
speaker on your iPhone. Or more likely, it's covering up one of the microphones that's being
used whenever you make a phone call. We'll talk more about those microphones a little bit later
in this video, but first screen protectors. We're not big fans of screen protectors and if you put
it on awkwardly, it could be covering up the earpiece speaker or one of those microphones.
So take off your screen protector and try again. Or if you really love your screen protector and
you don't trust us, just go to the next step and then at the end come back and take off your
screen protector. The next step is to restart your iPhone, which can fix a minor software bug.
If you have an iPhone with Face ID, press and hold the side button and either volume button
simultaneously until slide to power off appears on the screen. Then slip that power icon from left
to right to turn off your iPhone. If your iPhone doesn't have Face ID, just press and hold the
power button until slide to power off appears. Wait 15 to 30 seconds, let your iPhone completely
shut down, then press and hold the side or the power button again until the Apple logo appears
on the screen. And while your iPhone is restarting, if you could give this video a thumbs up, it helps
us out tremendously. Next up, and we already talked about devices a little bit, but sometimes
when you're using Bluetooth, the phone audio could be playing in your car or on an extra
speaker somewhere. So let's try turning Bluetooth off and then making that phone call again. I'll
open the settings app on my iPhone, tap Bluetooth, and first you can look through your list of
devices and anything that says connected here. That device is connected to your iPhone right now.
Let's just turn off Bluetooth at the top of the screen and shut it down completely. The next step
is to clean out the earpiece speaker on your iPhone. If it's been in your pocket all day,
it's easy for lint and other debris to build up inside your phone's ports,
speakers, and microphones. So grab an anti-static brush or a brand new toothbrush and start scraping
away. I'm going to use the toothbrush and I'll start by brushing out the earpiece speaker at
the top of the phone. Be kind of aggressive with it, as long as you're using a toothbrush
that you've never used before or anything non-metallic. After you've brushed out the
earpiece speaker, brush out all of the microphones on your iPhone. Where are they? There's one on the
bottom. There's one actually on the top that you've already brushed out because it's
up here in the earpiece speaker. A little pinhole guy in the lower right hand corner of the camera.
These microphones work together to cancel noise on your iPhone. When I was at the Apple store,
a lot of people used to come in and say one of the speakers on the bottom of my iPhone is broken
because it looks like there are two, but in fact there's only one. The other one is the microphone.
Even if you've cleaned out the microphone ports with an anti-static brush or a brand new
toothbrush, there could still be something wrong with the microphones. There's a software fix for
that, which we'll talk about later, but first we have another port we need to clean out. It
is the charging port. Why in the world are we cleaning the charging port on this iPhone?
Sometimes your iPhone can get stuck in headphones mode. It's more rare now than it used to be,
but if there's debris stuck in the charging port of your iPhone, it could be playing
audio through headphones that aren't there. I'll brush that out. You might be surprised by what
comes out of your phone. There's stuff falling on the table. Next we need to check a software
setting you've probably never heard of. Let's tap back to the main page of settings in the
upper left hand corner of the screen. Scroll down and tap accessibility, then tap touch,
then scroll down to call audio routing. Tap on that and make sure automatic is selected. Right,
if the wrong thing is selected here, your phone call could be routing your call to a different
device, not the one you want it to. Let's talk about that microphone software setting. It's
called phone noise cancellation. In the phone app, I'm going to call John up phone by tapping mobile
and once John picks up the phone.
Next, while you're on the phone call, swipe down from the upper right hand corner of the screen
to open control center and tap on mic mode and then try switching to voice isolation and see
if that fixes the problem for you. If you have an iPhone 12 or older, the process is a little
different. Go to accessibility settings and then audio visual and then turn off phone noise
cancellation. You know what you can do on any device? Become a member of this channel by
clicking that big join button below this video. Some people become members for the free pdf
guides, other people become members to connect with us or for free shortcuts. Whatever your
reason is, we would love for you to join our channel because it helps us out a lot. And after
you join the channel, make sure to keep your iPhone up to date. This can fix minor software
problems. So what I'm going to do on my iPhone is close out of the phone app by swiping up on it.
Then I'm going to open up settings again and head back to the main page of settings by tapping
back in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Next, we'll tap general, then tap software update
and look for an iOS update. If one is available, tap download and install. Before we talk about
the biggest software fix of all, we want to address the elephant in the room. How do you know
if it's a hardware problem or a software problem that's causing the issue? How do you know when
it's time to quit and give up and get your phone repaired because you're trying to fix a problem
you can't fix at home? The answer is to try calling a friend and really listen through the earpiece.
Is it quiet and crackly? If so, that might be a sign of a hardware problem. Or did you smash your
phone or flush it down the toilet? Definitely hardware problem. But if you can't hear anything
at all and your phone is in really good shape, there's a good chance a DFU restore will fix the
problem. When you make a phone call, it's your iPhone software that decides whether or not you
hear the other person's voice through your iPhone's earpiece. If the iPhone software isn't
communicating with its hardware, there could be an issue with its firmware, which is right in
between soft and hard. DFU stands for device firmware update and a DFU restore erases every
single line of code on your iPhone, reloads that code, and installs a fresh version of iOS.
Before you do it, make sure you have a backup of your data on iCloud or iTunes or Finder on a
newer Mac or Apple devices app on a newer PC. There's so many apps now, preferably iCloud,
so you don't lose all your data once your phone restores. The DFU restore is a pretty in-depth
process. That's why we made a whole video about how to do a DFU restore on your iPhone. That's
in a card above and in the section below the subscribe button. But if a DFU restore
doesn't work, it's time to talk about repair options. If your phone's under warranty,
definitely reach out to Apple because if you repair this yourself or bring it to a mom and
pop shop, they replace it with a non-Apple part. That's going to permanently void your
warranty and Apple's going to disavow any ability to help you. But if your iPhone isn't under
warranty, feel free to go into a local mom and pop shop or try to fix it yourself using
an iFixit guide. Not affiliated with iFixit, but the good news is for this problem,
depending on the model of your phone, so no promises, this is a problem you probably
can fix for not a lot of money. And once you fix that problem, check out our next video to
learn about all the iPhone settings you need to turn off now. We'll see you there.