Why is my iPhone selectively deaf?

March 4, 2010 9:21 AM

I just bought a second-hand iPhone 3G on eBay. It works fine, except that no applications (other than the built-in phone facility) get any sound input from either the built-in microphone or the headset microphone. Using Skype, the Voice Recorder or Shazam just gets silence. However, the microphone works perfectly when making phone calls. I have tried power-cycling it, resetting it and reinstalling the OS (upgrading it to the latest 3.1.3), but to no avail. Any ideas on what the problem could be?
posted by acb to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Well, it may have gotten wet -- if you look down into the microphone jack, is the dot down there pinkish red? It turns that way, from silver, if it has gotten wet.

My former 3G phone got wet once, and recovered fairly well after spending a few days in a baggie of dry rice. But a few months later, the sound got wonky -- it was fine for phone calls (though better if I put them on speaker), but the sound for applications would only work with headphones.

It seems your case is worse. My sound would sometimes come back for a few days if I did a clean re-install, but I never got it back to its pre-dunk perfection. Good luck.
posted by lisa g at 10:05 AM on March 4, 2010

You should blow some compressed air into the headphone jack. Maybe there's something in there shorting it out.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:13 AM on March 4, 2010

If the phone part gets working audio input then it stands to reason that the hardware itself is functioning. Doesn't seem logical otherwise. Is there some other setting for app audio volume levels?
posted by wkearney99 at 10:38 AM on March 4, 2010

If your phone doesn't have water damage and is still covered under warranty (check Apple warranty checker), go to an Apple store and have the Apple tech check it out. There's no setting for microphone input levels as far I know, and iPhones develop all sorts of hardware problems. I had a refurb that had its Bluetooth broken out of the box. Apple has a fairly liberal warranty policy for this kind of thing.
posted by meowzilla at 10:59 AM on March 4, 2010

There could be a lot of lint in the jack, or the mechanicall button in the jack may be stuck.

Sometimes my iPhone will be stuck in headphone mode because it still thinks the jack is installed. So naturally there is no sound output.

Either try fishing out any lint or garbage and then put a head-phone plug in and out a few times. Toggle the volume buttons and if it stops saying "headphone volume" then it no longer thinks they're there.
posted by Napierzaza at 1:23 PM on March 4, 2010