Hi,
The other day someone told me that if you were going to get rid of the iPhone microphone (like opening the iPhone and getting rid of the mic by destroying or removing) it would make the iPhone restart every minute because it is on the security features that if the mic is not working the iPhone should also not work.
I ask because I also heard that if the iPhone microphone doesn’t work (it is not there or has been broken) you can always make phones call by putting on the headphones with a mic and continue with your phone calls without problem and when you are not in a phone call you take the head phones with mic off and the iPhone goes back to not having any microphone function.
That being said, is it true that if the mic doesn’t work the iPhone will also not work? And if that is false what procedure should one ask to a technician to perform on iPhone 13 and above to make the iPhone not hear anything (because I understand there are multiple mics? )
Any advice appreciated
Also if that security feature is true, is it not true for previous iPhone versions?
Is for school project
Thanks
There is some attestation on parts inside the device, and likely if it has no microphone that’s not normal. Apple doesn’t sell any of it’s genuine parts except through authorized service providers. Typically people are trying to replace the home button screen etc, not the microphone, so who knows what would happen.
What even is the point, at rate might as well just not have a phone. Don’t embarrass yourself by asking the technician to perform such a task.
Just to add on to what Daniel’s said, in case someone else comes to thread and wants to actually learn something helpful, iFixit has a troubleshooting guide that lays out what sensors are required for a phone to be usable as a phone (i.e., not restarting every 180s). This applies to the X and newer. That said, you can still test your device has basic functionality by only plugging in the screen and battery, it will boot without anything else plugged in (I’ve done this myself on many different iPhones).
In addition to this, the parts that are paired to iPhone all the way back to the 12 are: both sets of cameras, battery, screen. Prior to that, it was generally the front camera assembly (on Face ID devices) and home button (touch ID devices), as well as the screen and battery that were paired.
There was this “brain slug” concept I’ve seen floating around in the internet:
Its basically its a device you put near the mic of Alexa (or any other voice assistants) that has speaker that generates random vocal sounds which in turn will functionally disable Alexa (because of the vocal “noise”).
The brains slug itself has a mic and a self hosted voice activation command that will temporarily disable/mute its garbled voice generation so that you can safely trigger Alexa only on command and not enable it to listen to the entire room literally all the time.
Maybe you could find a portable brain slug to go with your iPhone?
If this is the threat model you surely should not be using an iphone.
So it can be done?
Like which phone?
Definitely no, they do not even make phones any more. We recommend GrapheneOS so for that you need a pixel. Please read: Android Recommendations: GrapheneOS and DivestOS - Privacy Guides
This topic has run it’s course.