New Symbol on IPad top right near battery indicator

HI

A new icon has shown up on my ipad screen near Wi-Fi, and battery indicator,.

It is blue with a white circle inside round arrows.

Can anyone tell me what it is ?

THANKS


iPad, iPadOS 18

Posted on Dec 27, 2024 5:53 AM

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Question marked as ⚠️ Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 9, 2025 4:00 PM

Just wondering if someone got any definitive answers on this?

my symbol has been there for 3 days now and is pulsing light blue/dark blue.

(not sure that if its downloading or syncing it should take that long?)

29 replies
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Dec 27, 2024 8:35 AM in response to Momomoesh

I guess that you are referring to this new status icon:




Yours is one of many reports seen in recent days. This new icon appears to be undocumented by Apple at this time.


My own extensive testing has demonstrated this icon to indicate that a download to the iPad is occurring (you'll note from my screenshot that a download from a website is partially complete). When switching away from Safari to use another App, allowing the Safari to complete the download as background task, the new status icon will persist in view until the background download is completed.


Apple's documentation is often slow to catch-up with new features. Here is another status icon - that appears briefly when connecting some USB-C hubs - that Apple have yet to add to their documentation:



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Jan 15, 2025 8:43 PM in response to varjak paw

Hey. I first noticed this on 01/03/25, but it had been on my iPad Mini for probably a few days already. I called Apple Support. Very long phone call, but they were able to verify 1) that this forum post is the only available screen shot (nice work @LotusPilot); and 2)that they don't know what it is either. They helped me troubleshoot some security settings – there were a few unrecognized phone numbers from the EU/K in my 'trusted phone numbers' that I got rid of; but the whole process of screen sharing with the Apple rep solved the situation by replacing the mystery icon with the rep's purple screen share icon. So, they gave me a case ID# and I called it a night.


It showed up again tonight for the first time. I called Apple Support, reopened the case. None of the security infos have changed, but strangely I wasn't allowed to Accept the screen share, but only Reject: twice. Third time I rotated the screen to portrait, and it worked. That, and the fact that it got replaced/annihilated by the screen share icon again, as well as noticing that the mystery icon was both faintly pulsing and impervious to any action or dialogue whatsoever, leads me to agree with @varjak paw (thank you) that it's an exploit designed to sync or share information. However, it doesn't exist at the handy 'status icons meaning'-link provided.


This time I'm going to get a callback tomorrow – they don't have any new infos, but they're looking into it. I'm not optimistic, but at least it goes away after screen sharing with the Apple rep (only known resolution).

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Jan 24, 2025 4:16 AM in response to DavidR1378

DavidR1378 wrote:

Can I add to this with my experience and it might make some sense. This only appeared on my iPad on the 3rd January 2025 which is a relevant date. We changed from copper wire to fibre optic cable on that day. As soon as we were up and running the little icon appeared. Is it possible this means you are connected to fibre optic network not cable anymore? Just my four pennies worth. Hope this helps.


Appearance of this icon and your switch to full-fibre broadband is nothing more than coincidence. Other Users that have noticed appearance of this icon are known to be using other (non-fibre) network bearers.


While purely speculative until Apple offers some other explanation, it is perhaps possible that the appearance of this new icon, seen for short periods after updating to iPadOS 18.x, is linked to background download of LLM (Large Language Models) that are used by Apple's updated Machine Learning and Apple Intelligence functionality.


Once initially downloaded to the target device, these models are infrequently updated - and this, possibly, might explain why this icon only appears sporadically while models are initially downloaded and installed.

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Jan 17, 2025 5:41 PM in response to sillylocus

He wasn’t correct though. It was clarified by Apple today that the symbol indicated an app is downloading a file in the background. The list that was carelessly shared by the other guy and didn’t even include the blue logo with the cog and arrows. If it was easy to find on a list then we would not be here trying to find a solution.

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Jan 17, 2025 12:17 PM in response to JMcMurdo

Hey. Thanks for participating! Please climb down off of your soapbox. I received a callback from Apple, and they’re escalating the issue to the next level of assessment. That icon is not in that list.


Have a great day!


…wait – you’re not responding to me though. I think we’re saying the same thing. Still, vpaw’s just trying to help.

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Jan 24, 2025 1:25 PM in response to varjak paw

This symbol is related to syncing between devices. I noticed it after updating to 18.2.1 on my iPad. I also have an iPhone but haven’t updated it yet. After checking “Screen Time” under “Settings”, I noticed that it was showing the use of “Apps and Website Activity” of both devices. 


I listen to Podcasts on my iPhone but not on my iPad. I also use YouTube on my iPad but not on my iPhone. When I view “Screen Time”, it shows data from All Devices, but I can toggle on and off to view my screen time on each synched devices. 


So, this new symbol shows that data is being synced between these two devices and even though I haven’t yet updated my iPhone and it doesn’t have the new symbol, I can see the exact use of data on both. I’m fairly certain that this new symbol will show up on my iPhone if and when I update to 18.2.1


This syncing also occurs even if both devices are not connected to each other by Bluetooth or Hotspot. 

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Jan 17, 2025 11:55 PM in response to JMcMurdo

More helpful than criticizing others, why don’t you back up “it was clarified by Apple today” with some links or screen shots of your own? I mean, if you’re policing absolute acccuracy. Why don’t you have to prove prove your worth to this thread to the standard you’re holding others to?


people are allowed to be ‘careless’, ‘inaccurate’, or even downright wrong. That’s what trust or reputation scores are for, like upvotes or downvotes. It’s a crowdsourcing dynamic, a community forum, not a competition; your criticism helps nobody either.

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Jan 18, 2025 3:56 AM in response to JMcMurdo

Thank all for your help…the symbol has not reoccurred but I appreciate the help of this forum. I have been an Apple User since 1984 (shows my age) and have used this forum for help since it began. I have relied on the expertise of many and even what might have seemed to be a silly question was met with great courtesy and grace from those contributing. Please, given all the turmoil and disagreement we have today in so many places, can we return to that conduct? There are many of us who are experts and many who turn to those experts for help, and I appreciate this forum and those who contribute.

THANK YOU - this was obviously nothing to worry about.



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Jan 18, 2025 12:01 AM in response to BillDB

That’s the one. Thanks for the tip! It only shows up on my iPad Mini 6th gen. Not on phone, iPad Air, MacBook Pros… seems to be a downloaded exploit, meaning it appears when I’m downloading certain PDFs, but then it won’t go away without either your solution, or having Apple Support share my screen. As I’ve said, they’ll escalate my case if it appears again and I get them a screenshot.

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New Symbol on IPad top right near battery indicator

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