This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Apple iPhone iOS 13 (Apple Computer)
By Stephen Pate – If you use Made for iPhone Hearing Aids you may wish to skip the iOS 13 download for now. It may break theBluetooth connection to your iPhone and Hearing Aids.
Apple Insider, a respected Apple expert site, recommends that most people should wait Don’t update to iOS 13 just yet — wait for iOS 13.1
MFI Hearing Aid users are reporting multiple problems keeping their hearing aids connected to their iPhones after the iOS 13 upgrade. Problems include dropped connections during calls or streaming, loss of the hearing aids from the AirPlay screens that route audio, and no audio after hearing aids are picked.
I had numerous problems after downing iOS 13 last week. Three Apple Support persons including a MFI Hearing Aid Specialist said the problems were caused by the manufacturer who needs to update their firmware. However, that appears to be not true.
Hearing Tracker Forum sheds light on iOS 13 bugs
On the Hearing Tracker Forum, a user with experience on the beta iOS 13 code wrote,
For iPhone Beta and Mfi users, iOS 13.7 seems to have fixed most of the iOS audio routing issues, ones that would cause the iPhone to lose communication with the aids or stop responding to the iPhone’s aids control. In previous iOS versions, Phone calls would result in one or the other aid not communicating, and sometimes the incoming call would not route to the aids, but go into a hunt mode where it couldn’t decide where to send the audio – speaker or aids. Also, in 13.6 and earlier 13, there were problems with the phone changing volume levels when switching apps. azure blue
The Forum user is referring to iOS 13 beta code that has not been released to the public. In other words, the fix is not available yet.
The best advice is to wait until Apple fixes the problem. If you are like me and have a recent back up, you may try reverting to iOS 12.4.1. I haven’t tried the procedure so I don’t know if it works smoothly. Right now I’m resetting the hearing aids every few hours.
You can’t believe what the Apple iOS 13 screens say
This iOS 13 screen shows the hearing aids are connected.
When my hearing aids stopped working, I went to the Settings Screen at Accessibility…Hearing Devices.
It showed the hearing aids were connected to the phone at 4:22 pm. However, there was no sound in my ears.
AirPay shows no MFI hearing aids despite connection in Settings.
So I flipped over to the audio routing in AirPlay.
The MFI Hearing Aids were nowhere to be found.
That’s just one of the variety of problems with iOS 13.
I’ve also had times when the MFI Hearing Aids appear in the AirPlay audio routing screen and there still is no sound.
I waited once for about 4 minutes and the MFI hearing aids started working.
If you are streaming music this is confusing and annoying. If you are taking a phone call, it’s likely a reason for the other party to hang up.
When will the bugs be fixed?
In the Hearing Tracker Forum thread, the beta tester referred to beta 13.7 as being stable for MFI hearing aids. There is no correlation of the beta number 13.7 to the actual corrected release of iOS 13. The actual public release could be any 13.x number.
Since sites like 9to5 Mac and Apple Insider have no experience with MFI Hearing Aids, we can’t expect them to announce when iOS 13 works for MFI hearing aids. I suggest you subscribe to this site or Hearing Forum Tracker where people who use the MFI hearing aids are commenting.
If you want to report problems with iOS 13, join the Public Beta program and report your issues. This is important since MFI HA users are a very tiny subset of the 800 million iPhone users and Apple needs feedback.
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