Some iPhone 18 Pro owners report speaker crackling or popping sounds

Macworld It\’s been just 12 days since the iPhone 18 Pro went on sale, and some customers are already complaining about their phones. Specifically, at certain times the speakers produce a clicking, crackling, snapping, or “raspy” sound. As is often the case with such issues, affected parties congregated on a Reddit thread to discuss the problem. The original poster reports that shortly after setup their new 18 Pro Max produced a brief clicking or popping noise from the speaker (either upper or lower; the poster seems unclear on this) “almost as if someone is pulling out an aux cord.” This didn’t just happen once. It happened, they report, a number of times “during app switching and [while] playing around with volume and possibly voice dictation.” But it became less frequent over time, and didn’t happen at all in the few hours before the post was made. In a later edit, they add that “music at high volume sounds raspy as well.” At the time of writing, there are 29 direct, undeleted and non-mod replies to the post, and by my count at least 21 of these say they’ve experienced the same issue(s). Some report positive conclusions. One says it only happened on phone calls and that since updating to iOS 27.0.1 has stopped entirely. Another says that going into the Phone settings and choosing “Standard” mode rather than “Voice Isolation” led to “way less crackling.” But some cases appear to be more severe. One commenter, translated from Vietnamese, complains that they “hear random clicking or crackling sounds almost whenever I interact with the screen. Sometimes, I even hear it the moment I touch the screen to wake it up.” More reports of the issue have appeared on the MacRumors forum. Again, complaints are made about “crackling” sounds, “intermittent popping sounds,” a “super faint tick/pop from the earpiece speaker,” and a different, “very unpleasant” emphasis in the higher frequencies, as compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max. And again, far too many commenters confirm that they’ve experienced the same issue for this to be dismissed as user error or a single defective unit. Apple has not yet made a public statement about the issue, but may address it in a software update. Go into Settings and select General > Software Update and follow the prompts to install the latest version of iOS. Since Apple just released iOS 27.0.1 this week to fix other iPhone 18 Pro launch bugs, however, an imminent update is not guaranteed. In the meantime we recommend that owners of affected phones contact Apple to get them fixed, especially before the two-week return period ends.

A small number of iPhone 18 Pro users are reporting an issue where the speaker sometimes “pops” or “clicks,” describing it as a faint sound when doing things like switching apps … more…

Some iPhone 18 Pro owners have noticed an unusual crackling sound coming from the speaker of the device, leading to complaints on the MacRumors forums and Reddit. Users have called it a crackle, a faint tick or pop, or random clicking. Many say the problem is with the earpiece speaker, and both the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max appear to be affected. Some people hear the sound consistently, while others hear it during app use, scrolling websites, when receiving notifications, when the keyboard pops up, or when making a call using a cellular connection. On affected units, reports suggest toggling Airplane Mode on and off triggers the sound, as does adjusting screen brightness quickly. Apple released iOS 27.0.1 yesterday to fix a bug that could cause ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ models to restart when Face ID authentication fails. The release notes didn't mention a speaker fix, and early feedback says the update did not help. There are reports from people who returned their ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ models only to get a second iPhone with the same issue. It's not clear what's causing the problem, but if it is a bug, a future software update may address it.Related Roundup: iPhone 18 ProBuyer's Guide: iPhone 18 Pro (Buy Now)Related Forum: iPhoneThis article, "iPhone 18 Pro Owners Complain of Speaker Crackling or Popping" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums