Apple iPhone Xs series users reporting issue with top speaker

Apple’s newest iPhones came out late last month, and already multiple problems related to these phones have come to light. First it was LTE connectivity issues and then the charging problem.

Sadly, the list is growing, as there’s one more issue that a significant number of users have been reporting. Up until now, it somehow managed to stay under the radar, but that changes now.

The problem is related to speakers.

Specifically, the top speaker, with complainants saying their iPhone Xs or Xs Max’s earpiece speaker randomly stops functioning while playing music. Yes, no issue during calls, but the glitch happens while music is being played.

Following are some complaints that should give you an even better idea of the problem.

My XS speaker will randomly go out/turn off once or twice a day. A reboot will fix the problem, but until I reboot it, it will stay off

I can’t seem to get the earpiece speaker working when playing music or sounds from videos. Does anyone else have this issue? Easily noticed coming from iPhone 7+. If I cover the bottom of phone speaker, I can’t hear anything. Also slid the audio balance slider under Accessibility, no audio when slid to the right speaker

I have the Xs max and have noticed when listening to music or watching videos on my phone that sometimes the earpiece speaker does not work at all. I have went into settings and slid the slider all the way over and nothing. A restart fixes the issue which leads me to believe it is software related. I have saw 3 others with this problem but no permanent fix. Has anyone experienced this? If so do you have a fix? Thanks in advance.

Here are some complaints from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/oh_my_gwad/status/1047398548520751110
https://twitter.com/oh_my_gwad/status/1047724361560539137
https://twitter.com/LuoJJ/status/1047211828324028416

From Apple’s own online forum, to Reddit (1,2,3,4,5,6), to other third party forums, users are discussing about this problem almost everywhere. One user even created a YouTube video to explain this top speaker problem in detail. Take a look:

So it’s reasonable to say the problem is there, and it’s affecting a significant number of users. This top speaker issue rears its ugly head randomly, but what’s good it gets fixed with a device restart.

However, a restart or reboot isn’t a permanent solution, as the issue occurs again randomly. But what this workaround does indicate is that the problem lies in software – it’s definitely not a hardware fault.

We hope Apple takes notice of the matter asap, and a fix gets rolled out sooner than later. Some users who are on iOS 12.1 beta have confirmed the issue persists on that build as well. Anyway, here’s hoping the fix won’t take long to arrive.

Rest assured, we’ll let you know when that happens. Meanwhile, do let us know your experience (in comments below) if you are also facing this speaker problem.

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