What the orange dot on your iPhone means

It is possible that on some occasion you have noticed the presence of an orange dot on your iPhone and you wonder what its meaning is. That is the same question that many Apple users around the world ask themselves every day, since the vast majority do not know what it is. Even so, many prefer to ignore it and continue using their phone normally.

Are they right to not give it importance? In this post we are going to explain exactly what that orange LED light that sometimes appears on the iPhone screen is and what it is actually telling us. This orange dot (sometimes square) only appears in iOS 14 and later

In principle, the color orange is always a wake-up call. In it chromatic universal language, commonly accepted throughout the world, green is the color that indicates that everything is fine, while red is clearly a sign of error, or danger. For its part, orange is interpreted as a warning. And this also applies in the case of the orange dot on the iPhone.

Orange dot on your iPhone: microphone is on

iPhones use different indicators to inform us about events that take place in the system. Specifically, the orange dot on your iPhone is the signal that warns us that The microphone of our device is activated. Specifically, it means that there is an application that is using it.

It is important to know this signal, since it is very likely that the app in question is listening to our conversations. The orange light is a warning that our privacy could be compromised.

It may be that, in addition to an orange dot on your iPhone, an Green Point. In this case, it is the indicator that warns us that there is an app that is making use of the camera. The presence of both points at the same time leaves no room for doubt: both the camera and the microphone are activated.

They are indicators with which Apple informs us that we have an application installed that may be exceeding the permissions that we granted at the time of download. The notice that action must be taken in this regard. Recently, YouTube and TikTok users have reported that the light appears when they are connected, something that raises some distrust about the level of privacy when using these tools.

In any case, there is no need to be too alarmed. That orange dot on your iPhone also appears when you're using Crab. Just because an app has access to our phone's microphone does not necessarily mean that we are being spied on.

Apple looks after our privacy

Although the presence of an orange dot on your iPhone can be interpreted as an alarm signal, the truth is that Apple users can rest assured, as this means that The system is ensuring our security and privacy.

To verify that everything is fine, it is convenient access the Control Center Of the device. There we can consult a historical file of the apps that have activated the orange light, even if it was only for a few seconds. By clicking on the different colored buttons at the top we can obtain all the details (as shown in the image).

In any case, it must be remembered that The first time an application wants to access the camera or microphone of our iPhone it will always ask for permission. Without our consent, the action will not be completed. After that first time, it is the light indicators that have the mission of notifying us when these accesses occur.

Meaning of the colored light indicators on the iPhone

Now that we have unraveled the “riddle” of orange light, we have to find out the meaning of the other colors. Do you want to know what those warning lights that appear from time to time on your iPhone screen mean? Here we explain it briefly:

• Blue: The presence of this color on an iPhone screen means that Screen Mirroring has been enabled. Although it may also be that there is an app using our location information.
• Green: It can appear when the iPhone camera is being used (as we mentioned before) or when we are in the middle of a call. There is also a third possibility: that the internet sharing option has been activated.
• Red: A red dot in the iPhone status bar informs us that our device is recording what happens on the screen or is picking up external sounds.
• Purple: Finally, the lilac or purple color is the indicator that the option has been activated shareplay through which it is possible to share content.

As you can see, there are many more options than the orange dot on your iPhone that you can come across.