Mysterious ‘blue icon’ appears on iPhone screen – users joke it’s ‘aliens listening’ but never ignore its real purpose
AN iPhone fan was left confused after spotting a strange blue icon at the top of the screen.
The symbol appears next to the clock in the top-left corner of the status bar.
They shared a photo of the discovery to a Reddit thread asking: “What is this blue icon?”
It continued: “Came up on my dad’s phone and I have no idea waht it is.
“He has a tendency to just randomly download a ton of apps and never use them so no idea what it could be from. Any help is appreciated thanks.”
One user jokingly replied “aliens are listening”, but the answer is much simpler (and less exotic).
It’s actually the icon to show that a built-in iOS feature called Voice Control is active.
This is an Accessibility feature designed to make it easier to control your iPhone – allowing total voice control.
In an official memo, Apple explains: “You can control iPhone with just your voice.
“Speak commands to perform gestures, interact with screen elements, dictate and edit text, and more.”
IN CONTROL
You can access the feature by going into Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control.
It’s possible to set up quick-access for turning the feature on or off in three ways.
First, you can add it to the Control Center and tap the icon.
Secondly, you can set it to the Accessibility Shortcut, which means it activates when you triple-click the Side button.
And thirdly, you can ask Siri to switch it on or off with a voice command.
So if you’ve turned it on by accident, all three of those methods will let you shut it off.
If you don’t need it on then you’ll definitely want to switch it off.
Otherwise you might accidentally end up making your iPhone do things with your voice – and potentially not realize why.
If you’re also confused about the symbol even if you’ve used Voice Control, it’s understandable.
That’s because Apple recently changed the symbol: it used to appear as a blue microphone icon in the corner.
But it’s now a blue circle with two white arrows on the left and right side, and three vertical white lines in the middle.