Orange dot on iPhone

How to read it

Apple’s support article on the indicators says an orange indicator means the microphone is being used by an app on the iPhone. With the Differentiate Without Color accessibility setting turned on, it appears as an orange square instead of a dot, with the same meaning. The iPhone User Guide lists it among the privacy indicators as “Microphone in use”. When an app uses the camera as well, the iPhone shows the green dot in its place. This page gives the meaning as Apple’s help centre describes it, September 2026; Apple’s own article is “About the orange and green indicators in your iPhone status bar”.

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Where the dot appears

9to5Mac described the placement in 2020 and 2022. On iPhones with a notch, the dot sits in the status bar above the signal strength icon, in the right-hand ear of the notch. On models with the Dynamic Island it appears in the centre of the island; when the island is showing something else, the dot moves to the right of the battery icon.

Which app is using the microphone

Apple’s guide says a message at the top of Control Center tells the owner when an app has recently used the microphone or camera. 9to5Mac’s 2020 explainer says the message gives the kind of access, microphone or camera, and the name of the app that used it.

When the dot arrived

Apple promised more transparency about apps’ use of the microphone and camera when it announced iOS 14 in June 2020, and iOS 14 came out on 16 September 2020. Before then, 9to5Mac notes, the only sign was a red pill on the left of the notch when an app recorded from the microphone in the background. That stayed, and since iOS 14 the orange dot appears on the right at the same time.

Look-alikes

The orange square is the same indicator, drawn as a square for people who use Differentiate Without Color. The Green dot on iPhone means the camera is in use, alone or with the microphone, so a green dot covers the microphone too. A coloured bubble behind the time is something else: Apple’s 2019 status icon page gave red for recording sound or the screen, green for a call, and blue for a Personal Hotspot, Screen Mirroring or an app actively using location. On a Mac, Apple’s Mac User Guide says an orange dot beside the Control Center icon in the menu bar means the Mac’s microphone is in use, and a purple dot there means system audio is being recorded. On Apple Watch the microphone indicator is an orange microphone icon.

On Android phones

Android has no orange dot. Android Help says a green indicator shows at the top right of the screen when apps use the camera or the microphone, so on Android green also covers the microphone alone. Google’s developer documentation dates the indicator to Android 12. The Android status icons page covers the rest of the Android status bar.