It wouldn't be an iPhone launch if there weren't new problems to go with the new phone. At first, except for a minor porn issue in iOS 10, it seemed like the release of Apple's new operating system and its two biggest products of the year — the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus — was going smoothly. But, since the new iPhones went on sale on Friday, some people have taken to Twitter about two issues they've been experiencing.
The first is a hissing noise which, of course, has been termed #HissGate. Clever, Twitter.
Sure enough, my iPhone 7 is hissing. Can barely hear it unless I put my ear up but its there. I guess this is Hiss-gate?
— Gabe Salkin (@DigitalGravitas) September 19, 2016
@ismh I have a regular iphone 7 and it is hissing as well
— Jay Yanesh (@iPhone4Jay) September 17, 2016
The sound is reportedly noticeable on some iPhones when they're under a lot of stress, such as when a large video is being played (a task that uses up a lot of CPU and GPU resources). YouTube creator Unbox Therapy held a microphone up to the back of the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, and the older iPhone 6s to test it out.
In their test, the noise is barely there — if you didn't know what you were listening for, you might not even notice it at all. Thus far, none of the users who have noticed the hissing (the issue isn't affecting all new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models) say that anything bad has come of the sound, so there's no major reason to panic about #HissGate.
AppleInsider reported on a second issue, though, which happens when users put their iPhone 7 in Airplane Mode. The affected phones have trouble regaining cellular service afterwards, resulting in many calls to AT&T and Verizon.
Apple has yet to offer an official statement on either issue, and we didn't notice the problems during our testing. If you are worried — particularly about the latter issue — just avoid putting your iPhone 7 in Airplane Mode for now, and manually switch off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as needed, instead.
As for the hissing, maybe this is just your iPhone's take on Parseltongue.