iPhone Earphone Troubles

This one is actually quite funny, albeit not terribly related to ecommerce. I had an issue with my iPhone today where the headphones didn’t seem to be registering correctly with the device so that it didn’t seem to know when they were connected and when they were not connected.

The symptoms of this are that the phone would not send any audio signals to the headset speaker or external speakers, and would not pick up input from the headset mic. Rather, it thought that the headphones were still connected to the iPhone and was sending output to and expecting input from the headphones. Kind of problem since you can’t do anything with it then, and it was getting frustrating. I wasn’t sure if it was related, but I had just done a software update, and I also noticed that the headphones didn’t seem to go all the way into the jack, if even only by a tiny bit.

So I set off to Apple’s website to find support, and ran through the routine. One of my favorite suggestions, which is actually backed by Apple, is that you plug in and remove the headphones about ten times, which seems to solve the problem. Actually, this is kind of related to the actual solution, but I don’t suggest this as a viable option. Then there was the classic reset the phone, turn if off and on, and a few other steps that didn’t yield any results.

In the process I found a bunch of forum posts at various places where other iPhone owners seemed to be having a similar problem. Strangely, they all seemed to have at least one person in there that claims to have solved the issue by taking the headphones in and out of the jack ten times. I couldn’t get past how silly that seems, yet there must be something to it. In fact, it’s quite simple and I laughed out loud when figuring it out.

The iPhone has a special headphone jack that has connecting leads for the audio signal (right and left) output, as well as the microphone leads, and then there is a lead at the bottom which let’s the iPhone know that the headphones are connected, or not connected, which seems to be a toggle situation, whether it be a circuit of whatever. Either way, if there is no connection made with the headphones and that lead, the phone seems to get confused as to whether they are connected or not.

As it turns out, the connection was blocked. As I pulled out my headlamp and soldering magnifier, I noticed that I couldn’t even see the lead that was at the bottom of the jack. Maybe there was something to my observation that the headphones wouldn’t go in all the way. Indeed, once I got the light right and managed to take a look, it was pocket lint. I couldn’t stop giggling about that one for a while.

Getting out was actually a little tough, since it seemed that it was wrapped around the lead and stuffed in there pretty good. Considering I keep the phone in my pocket most of the time, I’m not really surprised that it happened. In fact, I’m a little surprised that there isn’t some sort of rubber cap on there to prevent all kinds of things that can happen to exposed jacks. Either way, a tiny screwdriver (you could easily use a sewing pin or a paper clip) is all that it took to eventually get all the lint out of there, and everything is working fine.

I figured that since I found it hilarious I would post about it, and perhaps someone else out there will benefit from my experience.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 10:56 pm and is filed under General Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

↑ Back to Top

Brian Getting is the Online Director at Practical eCommerce, specializing in website design and application development.