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iPhone 3GS problems

P

paulold

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 3, 2008
401
5
Washington, DC
I got my iPhone 3GS 32 GB from Apple's online store on the day of release. Here's a list of problems that I've had with it.

1. The power cord that came with the phone doesn't fit well in my iPhone. The new, smaller dock connector end is hard to connect and release. I noticed that my other power cords work fine, so I don't think it's the phone - I think it's the cord.

2. Home button errors occur sometimes, usually when I haven't restarted my iPhone in a while. What will happen is I will press the home button to wake up my iPhone and nothing will happen. I will then press the home button again, thinking I must have pressed the button poorly the first time and it will wake up but my iPod controls will appear, as if I had doubleclicked the button (which is how I have mine set). Very annoying but a restart usually clears it up.

3. Distorted sounds keep occuring fairly frequently. Most notably, when I plug my iPhone in to charge, the little chirp sound the iPhone makes is distorted, as if the sound is too loud for the little speaker, blowing it out. This also happens when I get a text message and when I use my alarm clock. Often, but not always, the sound is very distorted and it's really ugly. A friend of mine bought a 3GS phone a couple of weeks ago and I had texted him as he was syncing his phone for the first time. His very first text and the sound was distorted. He has the same problems with sound distortion as I do and I have read other threads with folks mentioning this same issue. I never had these sound issues with my 1st Gen iPhone.

4. Sound volume issues occur randomly, often times when I am typing. The sound will suddenly lower itself significantly. I keep my phone at full volume usually. Not sure why the sound dips like that on occassion.

5. No sound. There are times when I will notice that my iPhone is no longer making any sound. No clicking sound when I put it to sleeo, no sound when I wake it up and I suspect no phone ringing, text message alert sounds, etc. I have noticed that I have been missing calls and texts because my phone doesn't alert me. I'll turn on my phone and discover I have a message or a voicemail.

6. I have a friend who calls me regularly. Sometimes his calls simply never go through and I don't have anything in my Recents history. I might have a voicemail, but no evidence of a phone call. I've also had some lengthy delays with the delivery of voicemails (hours, sometimes days) and sometimes I never get a voicemail that my friend said he sent me. That's probably more of an AT&T issue.

7. Duplication in my Contacts on my iPhone has occurred when syncing with my MobileMe and my Address Book on my MacBook Pro. On more than one occassion I have had to manually go thru all of my hundreds of contacts to clean up the duplication. One day I will just notice they are back. Very annoying.

8. Telephone numbers in my Contacts on my iPhone were screwed up by the presence of a symbol that looks like a little cross at the beginning of many of the phone numbers, making it impossible to dial the number. I have to edit each phone number in order to get rid of the cross before I can dial them. I painstakingly went thru my entire list of Contacts and cleaned out these crosses. Hopefully they are gone for good.

I'm probably forgetting some other issues, but those are the biggies. I'm a bit surprised that folks haven't been making a bigger issue of the sound problems on the online forums. My friend and I have the same sound problems and we've been awaiting the release of 3.1 to fix it for some reason, but I'm not sure if it's been officially documented as an issue that will be addressed by the update. Do you think these things will be fixed by the next software update? I was a bit disappointed that 3.01 didn't include the fix.

Overall, I'm still happy with my iPhone but I have to say the 3.0 seems fairly buggy. Another case of Apple rushing out a product before it's ready?

Paul
 
I also notice the sound issues when the sound on my phone is on. My text messages won't alert me cause the sound isn't work and the next time when I go to look at my phone I'll see that a text came thru...

I hate this a lot but figure there's nothing I can really do about it and since it's so sporatic I feel like I can't pinpoint it either!
 
Another sound issue detail... Last night I went to see a movie so I silenced my iPhone using the switch. I could feel my phone vibrate on occasion indicating I received text messages and emails. Watched the movie and did not turn the sound back on until I was in my car. I didn't use my iPhone for anything the whole time I had the sound turned off - not even for checking the time. Took me a moment to realize it but even though I had turned the sound back on, I had no sounds. I tried toggling the switch again - no change. The only thing I could do was to restart the iPhone (yet again) and the sounds returned. Clearly a software issue, right? Something like that does not suggest I have a hardware issue/bad iPhone that should be returned to the Apple Store, right? It's not really easy to re-create since it happens every so often. And I can't really time the sound issues with an appt with an Apple Store genius. Should I leave it without sound for a couple of days while waiting to see someone at the Apple Store? Or should I just continue to wait for 3.1, to see if the update fixes the problems?
 
That's nothing. I'm on my 5th 3gs. They were exchanged for bad reception, defective LCD, broken gps, and consistent crashing of the native apps even when the phone had none of my data on it.
 
I suggest you get it replaced, seems like major problems there because I don't get those problems. (I'm in Australia and I got the first wave of stock here yay if that's shedding info on anything here)

however,
4. For the random lowering of sound when you type, check to turn off the "speak auto-text" option in accessibility settings (general -> accessibility). When I had this on, it would lower the sound of my song I'm listening to when my typing had a correction to make.

7. Maybe check your sycning options. Don't check the box "sync address book contacts" in the info tab in iTunes if you've got an exchange/mobileme account set up on the iPwn.

8. Please tell me the crosses were not +'s

for everything else, yeh get it replaced.
 
1. I agree the cord is not as nice as the older style. Some 3GS have a dock connector the is misaligned inside the phone.

2. Had this happened a lot on my 2G

6. Are you on EDGE? Calls won't go thru is you are using data on EDGE.

7. Syncing with MobileMe is not great.

Personally I would get it exchanged.
 
I believe the sound issues should be a hardware issue rather than a software?

Don't see this as a promulgated issue on a fairly large scale.
 
Most of your problems seem to be software issues. The sound distortion is REALLY annoying. I constantly hear it when I'm getting a text. I hope a software update will fix that.

The only real hardware problem I have is with my sleep/wake button. Its recessed and I have to press down hard to lock my phone. I've been wanting to get a replacement but it seems like the replacement phones aren't much of an improvement.
 
paulold said:
Overall, I'm still happy with my iPhone but I have to say the 3.0 seems fairly buggy. Another case of Apple rushing out a product before it's ready?
Click to expand...

Considering that not everyone is having these issues (and I'm having none of them) the problems you're having are clearly not unviersal.

For #7: Check your sync settings in iTunes and on your Macbook. MobileMe should not be giving you duplicate contacts.

Check your MobileMe account by logging it through the website... do the dupes appear there as well?

For #8: are your contact numbers showing up as +1-xxx-xxx-xxxx? If so, "+1" is a default dialing prefix for GSM networks indicating it's a North American number. It should dial just fine. All of my contacts have this.

If you never take your iPhone out of the country, then having +1 or not having it shouldn't matter. But if you do, and intend to make calls on it, then you'll want to put those +1's back.
 
I had all the same problems with mobile me. In addition, it killed the battery, as if we needed that. The push software has something to do with it.

When I cancelled mobile me it caused a double synch of all contacts. When I went into delete the duplicates it erased all my contacts on yahoo. Get rid of mobile me. I believe when its pushing data thru it interferes with the normal operation of the phone radio.


Well now no problems whatsoever. The sound alerts all work now.
 
It's interesting to me, the mixed responses from folks. Some of you make me feel like maybe I should turn in my iPhone, that perhaps I have a dud. But what about my friend who has some of the very same sound problems? We both just happen to have bought lemons? We do download a lot of the same apps - I was wondering if perhaps there's some app that might be causing the sound issues - maybe some sort of conflict?

Some replies to specific questions/suggestions:

a. I did not have the Speak Auto-Text setting turned on.

b. The sync settings in my iTunes is correct. It is not set to sync the contacts in my address book. (And just an update, so far I have not seen the duplication pop back up. But I really won't be surprised if it reappears at some random point in the future, as it happened before.)

c. I know the difference between a plus sign and a cross. : ) These were not plus signs. I wish I had thought to take a picture. Oh wait - I did. I will attach a picture. I've cleaned these out and have yet to see them return, so perhaps this issue is gone too?

d. Calls won't go thru if you're using data on Edge? Never heard that before. But in my area, my 3G network is fairly dominant. I usually have a decent 3G connection or no connection at all. I don't remember if I've seen my current phone on EDGE yet.

e. I like my MobileMe and don't want to give it up. I mainly use it for sharing my photos and vids. But I do like that, when it's working, I am able to sync up my contacts between my phone and my MacBook Pro on the fly so that any change I make in either address book will update the other in moments.

f. I think I might be able to demonstrate the sound distortion problem to a Genius at the store. If I set an alarm, it will likely be distorted when it goes off, as it usually is each morning for me. It's odd how sometimes the sound is fine and sometimes it's wacked - but that also suggests to me that it's software related. If the speaker was blown, say, how come it works fine at times?

Thanks for all your responses!

Paul
 

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What i noticed is (the most annoying...i wont list all)

1- When i am on loud speaker people often tell me the cannot hear me well...meaning the sound goes up and down...so during a few sec they hear me well the next secs they feel i am very far away...it was not the case with my 3G.
2- When my phone is in sleep mode, sometimes when i push the home button or button on the top I can see my screen wallpaper but it is deemed, meaning the phone wakes up but the light does not turn on...i have to press the button one more time to have the light on.

Are these SW issue? The #1 is the biggest issue as i use loud seakers a lot.
X
 
1. Perhaps you have a defective cable? Mine works just fine.

2. I've never encountered this problem.

3. I've never encountered this problem, either.

4. I don't know why your sound would be 'dipping,' but I have to say that if you are using your iPod with headphones and have the volume all the way up, that's just too loud. You will damage your hearing (perhaps you already have). That said, you might want to check to see if the volume limiter is on.

5. I've never had this problem. Perhaps you have the ringer turned off?

6. As someone else mentioned, if you are on an Edge data connection you will not receive any incoming calls. This is not an iPhone issue; it is a limitation of Edge. No phone will receive calls while an Edge data connection is open.

7. I don't have mobile me, so I can't help you there.

8. I'm not sure why you got daggers (that sybol is called a dagger, for future reference) in your telephone numbers. Mine synced flawlessly, so I doubt it is an issue with the iPod software. Did you perhaps have these numbers in some other application or online address book before? If so, it may be a problem with the way it exported them to Address Book.

Sorry if this hasn't been much help. I really haven't seen any of the issues you're talking about. You could always try wiping and restoring from a backup. That sometimes helps.
 
I think I know why your sound dips while typing.

When you type, do you rest in your fingers? If so, your finger is close to or right on the speaker, and it can muffle the sound.
 
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