iPhone 18 Pro Owners Complain of Speaker Crackling or Popping

Tuesday September 29, 2026 1:44 pm PDT by Juli Clover

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.

Apple iPhone 18 Pro 2up 16x9 1
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.

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Top Rated Comments

Hammerd

3 weeks ago

You’re hearing it wrong

Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)

gknewell

3 weeks ago

This launch did not go well.

Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ISignedUpToAskThis

3 weeks ago

This launch did not go well.

What makes you say that? The only widely reported issue was the FaceID (fixed quickly with update) and now this popping sound which doesn't seem to affect everyone (it doesn't affect mine and I've seen other posts where people are saying they don't have the issue). Availability of devices was pretty good too compared to last year too - dates started slipping a lot later than usual.

When you think of what has happened in the past - some devices selling out rapidly, bendgate (iPhone 6), the orange color fade with some devices (last year), antenna gate (iphone 4), the issues with durability (either paint finishes or material). There have been other issues in the past I can't recall right now.

This has been fairly smooth to be honest.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Biro

3 weeks ago