The Internet forums have been alight with complaints from parties all over the world. It seems, it doesn’t matter what version of firmware you’re using. Whether you’re on 1.0.6 thru 1.1.3, the issue is the same – after a while, there’s no sound coming from the earpiece!
Unfortunately, this seems to be a software/hardware bug in the surrealistic iPhone where the OS seems to think that the earphones are still plugged in even after they have been removed. Whereby all sounds which are ordinarily channelled through the earpiece are muted.
At first, reading the forums it appeared to be a potential software bug but after experiencing it for ourselves the phone continued to behave erratically even AFTER restoring it!
For now, there doesn’t appear to be a surefire cure that will remove this issue other than deceiving the iPhone that the earpiece has been removed by plugging and unplugging your earphones until the iPhone stubbornly ‘believes’ your efforts and returns sound back to your earpiece.
On the other hand, one workaround, would be not to plug any earphones into your iPhone at all to avoid this issue altogether but what’s the point in having an iPhone/iPod then?
At time of writing, representatives from Apple could not be reached for comment.