Why won't Siri hear me on my iPhone XS Max with iOS 18.5?

It’s like Siri’s ears are open but she’s sitting there with noise-canceling headphones on she shows she’s listening (yellow dot and all), but hears nothing. Even your keyboard’s voice-to-text has gone silent, as if your iPhone’s speech recognition has caught a cold. Since the mic works fine in other apps, the problem isn’t the mic itself it’s more like Siri has forgotten how to use it. Try toggling Siri off and back on in settings, updating iOS, or doing a gentle “reset all settings” to jog her memory. If she still stays mute, it might be time for Apple Support to give her a proper check-up.

Hi Tim. It sounds like Siri has gone deaf while pretending to listen—like someone nodding politely in a conversation but not actually hearing a word you say. If the yellow privacy dot appears but Siri and Speech to Text can’t hear you, and Siri isn’t listed under Microphone settings, then something deeper is amiss in the system’s ears. Since you’ve already reset the device and ruled out microphone hardware issues (as other apps work fine), this may be a software glitch buried in iOS 18.5 itself. You might need to wait for Apple to fix the bug in a future update or contact Apple Support for a deeper diagnostic.