Those "ratings" mean the sound will be distortion-free +/- 3dB over that range. You can still make some noise higher or lower than that, it will just be more distorted. I know iPhones support audio formats with at least 96 kHz sample rate, so you should be able to play half that or 48 kHz sounds without too much trouble. It might have some kind of band-pass filter built in, but the ratings won't tell you.
> Those "ratings" mean the sound will be distortion-free +/- 3dB over that range.
No it doesn't. All speaker drivers act as bandpass filters. On the ends of their frequency ranges those +/-3dB points are generally their -3dB points. For most speaker drivers their low frequency cutoff will be caused by the resonance of their motor, dropping off rapidly after that point. The upper frequency limit will be caused by the inductance of their motor's coil with a similar drop off above it.
It's unlikely that the iPhone speaker could reach 48kHz. If you look at expensive high frequency units (tweeters) they'll generally top out at 20-30k. A lot of headphone drivers (which are more similar to what's in the iPhone) barely make it to 20k.
> You can still make some noise higher or lower than that, it will just be more distorted.
Again, nothing about distortion here. A speaker driver will output sound outside of its -3dB points, but, obviously it's going to be much quieter (-3dB is already half as quiet).
