If there is a blue microphone icon at the top of your iPhone screen, you may be wondering why it is there and how to get rid of it. Fortunately, it is pretty simple to remove, and in this article, we’ll tell you how.
What is the blue microphone icon?
The blue microphone icon in the status bar of your iPhone indicates that Voice Control is turned on. In this article, we’ll tell you about Voice Control and how to turn it off and on.
Why you keep seeing the blue Voice Control microphone icon
If you are seeing this icon, you must have turned on Voice Control sometime in the past.
After you setup Voice Control, a microphone will appear in the status bar of your iPhone that indicates that Voice Control is listening or not listening.
How to remove the blue microphone from iPhone
To remove the blue microphone icon, you need to turn off Voice Control. You can do that from Settings:
- Go to Settings and select Accessibility.
- Select Voice Control, then toggle the switch next to Voice Control to turn it off.
What is Voice Control?
If you had Voice Control on, maybe you were using it, and you know what it can do… and maybe you don’t. Voice Control is designed to let you control your iPhone using voice commands.
What Voice Control can do
When Voice Control is turned on, you can speak commands just like you would perform an action by touch. For example, to access Spotlight Search on the Home screen, say “Swipe down.” Or to access long-press menus for certain apps, say “Long press [app name].”
Here are a few other things you can do with Voice Control
- To lock your device, say "Lock screen."
- To activate listening, you can say "Go to sleep" or "Wake up." The listening feature doesn’t turn off, but puts the microphone to sleep until you wake your device with a command.
Why you might want to turn off Voice Control
If you are not using the features of Voice Control, you may want to turn it off. After all, it is always listening to you. This can result in weird things; like, if you have a text conversation open and you just start talking, your words will show up in the text message box even when you have no intention of sending a text.
Also, you can easily turn Voice Control on or off after the initial setup. To get rid of the blue microphone at the top of your iPhone, you simply have to say, “Hey Siri, Turn off Voice Control.”