Question :

I have a recent iPhone running iOS10, but lately I can’t hear people calling me and they can’t hear me when I phone them. There is a cracking noise which makes it impossible to use my iPhone for calling.

Is my iPhone broken ?

Answer :

Even though we cannot rule out that your iPhone is actually having a broken audio hardware issue on forehand, it’s more likely to be a software problem.

This problem is usually fixed by doing one of these resets ( first, be sure to keep your SIM’s PIN-code at hand as you might need it ) :

reset option #1 :

• while your iPhone is on, press the physical MENU (on the front screen) and ON/OFF (on top or on the right side) buttons at the same time until the screen goes black and after a few seconds the white Apple-logo reappears
• wait for your screen to rebuild ; then your iPhone has been reset and you can test if your audio works properly while calling

reset option #2 :

• while your iPhone is on, press the physical ON/OFF button (on the right side of your iPhone) until the ON/OFF slider appears on screen
• set the ON/OFF slider to OFF and wait for the screen to go black
• now turn your iPhone back on by pressing the ON/OFF button and wait for your screen to rebuild ; then your iPhone has been reset and you can test if your audio works properly while calling

usually, that’s it… that’s all you need to fix this…

…but if neither of these resets work for you, your iPhone’s audio hardware is probably broken and you should have your iPhone repaired at an Apple Store or Apple repair-centre.