Solved : iPhone 3G earpiece volume problems
I’ve been using an iPhone 3G for about six months now. It’s been an excellent mobile computer and a fair to poor telephone — the main difficultly has been the very low earpiece volume which has made it nigh on impossible to hold a conversation in anything but the quietest environment. The earpiece volume problem has been widely reported. Full volume has just not been enough for me, until now!
It turns out that the culprit is a small piece of transparent plastic which covers the earpiece. I have an after market screen protector and had already removed the earpiece cut-out from that when I applied it. I thought the remaining plastic cover was part of the phone itself, but I assume it must have been left behind when I removed the protective film that Apple ships with the phone, when I first got it.
Carefully peel off this plastic cover — there should be nothing but fresh air between your ear and the gauze in the earpiece recess. I’m now comfortably using the phone on a volume setting of 4 of of 15.
Once I’d discovered the problem and knew what to search for, I discovered that others had already covered the same ground. I wonder how many reported earpiece volume problems and returned phones were affected by this simple problem?
In combination with the iPhone 3.0 software update, I couldn’t be happier.
It’s not a “problem” of the iPhone when you don’t unwrap the packaging material.
@tom
No, its a problem of the packaging when it doesn’t separate cleanly and obviously from the product, and then impedes the use of the product over six months use. I’d agree with you if it had only happened to me, but other seem to have suffered the same fate. The cut-out was pretty solidly attached to the phone.