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iPhone Headset Won’t Work? It’s Stuck in Headphone Mode – Here’s the Fix

Written by mike on March 10th, 2009

Discovering that the person on the other end of the phone can’t hear you talk, especially while driving on the freeway, is frustrating, scary and dangerous. Is your headset broken? Is it the iPhone itself? Do you need to repair or replace? Very frustrating.

However, as I recently learned, it’s likely a simple issue called “headphone mode” – the setting the iPhone automatically switches into when you listen to music with standard headphones (not the headset with the microphone and button). If the headphones are removed the wrong way (what that is, I do not know), the iPhone might think you still have them inserted and won’t respond correctly when you try to use the earpiece.

A call to the Apple technician recommended rapidly plugging and unplugging the headphones. However, that didn’t work for me. The other option was to restore the iPhone, erasing all my contacts, photos, etc.

Before doing that, I tried one last thing that worked immediately. Here’s what to do:

  1. Put your iPhone into iPod mode with the headphones plugged in
  2. Unplug the headphones. iPhone goes back to regular mode.

Voila, the problem is solved. Enjoy.

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  • Justine

    Question- dear mike- you seem to be the only one who has written about the iPhone headset issue I am having but I’m unclear abt the fix. Can you clarify the procedure. What is iPod mode? My headset (the kind with the mic & on/off button) isn’t functioning correctly. No one hears me when I speak & it often won’t turn off/on my book/music as it used to when I push the button. This seems to be true with all the headsets I’ve tried all of a sudden. Help please? Thanks!! Justine

  • http://None Michelle

    It didn’t work

  • WillC

    THE REAL CAUSE: ** HEAT generated by internal iPhone 3G components causes this headset mode problem to keep occurring **

    For all of you who have this issue, the real reason is not something that Apple wants to admit. The problem is a defect in the manufacturing of older iPhone, not debris in the headphone jack, and might be limited to older generation devices (3G or older) using older manufacturing processes.

    If you go into a retail store, Apple will first try to convince you that something stuck in the headphone jack is the real culprit and after 5-10 minutes in the backroom ‘cleaning it’ it will appear to be working again. Of course, this goes away in that time the ‘Genius’ is in the back room, since the device has cooled down. The option they present to you (if out-of-warranty) is to replace the old device with another old device at the cost of a newer generation device, which might very well exhibit the same behavior in the future.

    The simplest way for you to reproduce this issue is by using your iPhone for phone calls or heavy game playing for extended periods of time (15+ minutes depending on the severity of your hardware issue) and the phone will switch into headphone mode automatically. This is extremely annoying if you’re on a call with a Bluetooth headset since it will switch by itself in the middle of your call to headset mode.

    Usually it resolves itself shortly after the activity that caused the heat stops. Thus, by the time you arrive at a ‘Genius-bar’ appointment, it’s no longer repeatable. Or after gathering the q-tips/headphone plugs and inserting them repeatedly, the cool down will have happened and it appears to also resolve. But not matter what, repeated use will bring this issue back.

    THE RESOLUTION: NONE at this time, unless we complain and highlight the repeatability of this issue. Apple has downplayed this as not being a hardware issue and will likely fight any requests for free replacements.

  • Loshanda

    THIS DOESNT WORK

    • Shadowx0824

      For some of you this may be the problem, for others the in and out headphone works, but for the few that are having this problem all the time and not intermittently, have the headphonejack flex cable replaced. It is shorting out do to a small break. When the phone heats up the metal in the cable expands causing a short. Others just have a short