JBL Portable

• Free

Last verified 30 Aug 2026

4.7 59882 ratings · App Store

1. 1/5Bugs - incl. damage to your ears kind of bugs

   Pros: when this app is (was) working, it makes playing more than one portable speaker easier than trying to manage them through Apple Music. Cons: when attempting to update the firmware as prompted, both JBL Flip 6s abruptly started blasting the most horrendous, harshest, literally ear piercing noise while I was sitting about two feet away from both of them! That noise was so loud and so bad that I had to overcome my instinct to cover my ears with my hands to try and hard shut down the speakers. That took a couple of minutes simply to get both speakers turned off and the stop the hellacious noise. The volume control was not working, I was in panicked shock. No exaggeration here - we are talking literally hearing damaging harshness at a dangerous volume. I wish I had a way to convey how bad this actually was. Perhaps to help illustrate, my dogs literally fled the floor of the house that I was on yelping and whining, cowered for another 20 minutes and avoided that room for several days. Intelligent animals! For the past 6 weeks since, I have been afraid to attempt another firmware update, but perhaps fortunately - it will not progress. After multiple, multiple attempts the update seems stuck on 0%. Recap. Aside from the cons above and the fact that I absolutely cannot recommend this app, everything‘s great!

   TruckerHat · 30 Aug 2026

2. 2/5Getting there

   For almost a year I couldn’t use this app to use with my speakers to play them in stereo. To there credit they do seem to be addressing issues with the app. I can now do stereo playback. However, one thing still bugs me, the app does not show an accurate representation of just how much battery life your speakers have, it constantly says 100%. This wouldn’t be so frustrating if it wasn’t for the fact that the speakers don’t show up as a Bluetooth device connected on the iOS front page where you see you battery status for other devices like your watch or Apple Pencil. I seriously hope they address this. Knowing just how much charge your devices have is crucial. *UPDATE* Here it is, tail end of 2025 and this app is still garbage. I have a little Bose speaker that I prefer to use over my three JBL charge 5s largely because the app performance is largely flawless. I can have the JBL connected via Bluetooth and the app still won’t recognize that anything is connected. Beyond that it never seems to remember stereo pairing configuration and I spend needless time fiddling with it instead of actually enjoying music through the things. These are easily one of my most regretted audio purchases. I got them for the sound, but the confounding crappiness of the app seriously ruins the experience of this product. There are constants updates but the same problems persist, it’s like no one is actually doing any testing.

   Sgr A* · 30 Aug 2026

3. 5/5Sound cutting out resolved!!!

   After reading through the reviews, there is a guy down the thread that explained how JBL support helped correct the issue. Don’t follow the on-screen instructions completely. Only connect a single speaker via Bluetooth to your device. Then use the app to link up other speakers via partyboost (connect feature). Once they are finished linking together via the connect app (REMEMBER ONLY ONE SPEAKER IS TO BE CONNECTED THROUGH BLUETOOTH), the sound issues will disappear. I have had nothing except for flawless crystal clear sound while streaming ever since! Thank you to that guy for posting the solution. I was going insane and was furious before that. Good luck whoever takes the time to read this.

   nos822002 · 30 Aug 2026

4. 5/5Bugs

   I’m a truck driver and I use my speakers all the time . I stopped using them before the update because they would go in and out . I just updated and I do see improvement on the sync, before the speakers would go out and come back on but would not be in sync with the picture. That problem looks like it is fixed. The problem now is they still go in and out , I use them with my iPad and I really love the speakers. I hope the developers can get this together and as the updates come out I will give my opinion on them . Also note they do not stay synced when you play them together. One will drop out and one will play on and off.I give two stars for the small update. Update august 5 . I will give five stars now because I haven’t had any problems with the connection for the last month. The app is working fine at this time.

   Kingkam74 · 30 Aug 2026

5. 2/5Software Cripples Speakers

   This is a rating for the app, not the speakers. But I admit, It’s hard to know where the problem exists, is it the app or the speakers? However, after reading a large number of other reviews, it appears that there are problems using the app with many of the various speaker types that it supports. I have two Pulse 3 speakers and it is almost impossible to get them working in stereo mode. There is nothing about setting this up in the printed manual that comes with the speakers so I assume it is limited to setup via the app. Also I can sometimes get one of the speakers set up to adjust the display but never so that I can adjust the other without without disconnecting both from Bluetooth first. When I go to the Bluetooth setup on my iPhone to disconnect, I find two instances of one of the two speakers listed. What is with that? I would like to have four of these speakers, two for each channel but that is probably too much to expect.

   August232021 · 30 Aug 2026

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