What these mysterious symbols on your iPhone really mean

Lifestyle

From Jane Hertz

July 16, 2023 | 2.20pm

The more you know!

Some of the mysterious symbols that appear on your iPhone are now revealed and have more meaning behind them than you might think.

If you’ve ever glanced at your weather app and noticed a tiny white dot on that day’s temperature index bar, there’s a reason it should show where the current temperature is falling on the scale, according to The Sun. .

The white dot is also used to show where the UV index is for the day, as well as sunset times.

So, for example, if the day’s high is supposed to be 90 degrees, and the white point is at the bottom of the scale, that means the temperature has reached the hottest point of the day.

The feature was introduced in 2021 when Apple released iOS 15.

There are other symbols you may not be aware of as well, like the orange dot at the top of the screen, near where the battery life and Wi-Fi icons are.

According to Apple itself, if the orange dot is present, it means that the microphone is being used by the phone or another app in the background.

And, if there’s a green dot instead of an orange one, it indicates that your camera or both the camera and microphone are being used by an app on your smartphone.

They also note that if the time on your phone is surrounded by a bubble of a different color, there is also a meaning if it’s blue, it means your phone is using screen mirroring, and if it’s red, it means your phone is recording.

And finally, a green bubble means you’re taking a phone call or using a personal hotspot, while a purple bubble means your iPhone is using SharePlay to connect to the FaceTime app.

If you want to know more about which apps use these features on your phone, you can easily log into your iPhone’s control center to find out, according to The Daily Mail.

However, these iPhone features aren’t the only tech secrets that have been revealed in recent months.

In November 2022, the popular messaging app WhatsApp launched a feature that allows you to send messages to yourself in the application on mobile devices.

The new feature allows you to simply start a new chat and your number should appear at the top of your contact list with the option to message yourself.

And did you know your iPhone also has something called sound recognition?

This means your iPhone can alert you to certain sounds, like a dog barking.

If you want to access it, simply go to your settings, click on accessibility and then on sound recognition.

You can enable it by pressing the switch to the right, then tap sounds to activate what you want your phone to recognize.