spinning wheel icon next to wi-fi indicating network activity

The spinning icon means that some app is using data. You need to troubleshoot that. If you are using dictation everything you dictate is sent to Apple’s speech recognition server to perform speech to text, and the result is then sent back to your phone. This is the same server that Siri uses. So while you are dictating it will use data continuously, and for a while after you stop as it tries to refine the recognition.

But to troubleshoot go to Settings/Cellular and tap Reset Statistics, and turn off Wi-Fi, so all data goes over cellular. As you use the phone note when it is using data. After a few hours go to Settings/Cellular and the apps that have used data will be listed at the top of the page. You can see which ones used the most.

I have had this problem with 2 phones over a 5 year span. The ONLY thing that fixes it for me (and yes, I have tried resetting to factory, reinstalling iOS, rebooting, taking it to Apple repair etc) and the ONLY thing that works for me is to engage Siri by holding down the HOME button and then clicking on the small circle that shows that Siri is engaged. At this point, I don't speak to Siri -- I just engage the button. I click that small circle that pops up when the home button is engaged several times. It changes it's look (I suppose that it is going into different functions -- I don't know). If the top data circle doesn't stop spinning after several attempts over and over of pressing the multi-colored circle, I speak with Siri to actually engage the voice and I tell it to stop spinning. The voice says it doesn't know what I mean, but then, I push the multi colored circle again and the spinning stops. So it seems that something is happening to get "stuck" when voice-to-text gets engaged. Apple does not seem to interested in investigating it.

I have tried hard reset many times, factory rest. Every time I use the microphone it comes back. Until Apple fixes this VERY annoying problem I can only suggest doing as I have which is turning off Dictation in settings.

Not being able to use dictation is slow and cumbersome for long text messages but at least I’m not chewing up extra data.

APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE!!!

TL;DR: Doing a full restore of iOS 14.2 through iTunes (not OTA) still doesn't solve it, at least not when also restoring from a backup.

Some of you may have already discovered this in your internet travels, but this is actually a pretty longstanding issue. If you do searches on the terms: "spinning icon" or "spinning network activity indicator" along with either "dictation" or "speech-to-text", you'll see this goes back several years. Although there are a lot of posts about the spinning icon, we're not the first group to discover that it is tied to the dictation services. People were also posting about the temporary Siri fix several years ago.

Back in 2017, someone was successful by doing a full restore through iTunes, versus OTA. I know some folks in this thread have tried resets and restores, but I don't think anyone stated they had tried that, so I went ahead and gave it a shot. I completed a backup through iTunes first and then did a complete reinstall of iOS 14.2. I then restored by backup. This whole process takes quite awhile and I can see why no one wants to do it.

After completing the above, I initially thought it was successful. I did a couple of short dictations and there were no issues. I was ecstatic and thought it had worked, because I received the persistent spinning icon 100% previously. So I went on my merry way finishing with the restore (logging into accounts, checking settings on apps, etc.). When I went back and did another test dictation, the **** icon came back and kept spinning.

At that point, I went ahead and enabled Siri. That band-aid approach does seem to be working for me also. It looks like I don't even have to say anything, just activate Siri with the home button and let it sit open for a few seconds and then close it and the persistent spinning network activity indicator goes away.

Between the apparent initial success after the restore, and then discovering the problem actually still persisted, I had done very few things. I had disabled Clips and Game Center from backing up to iCloud (I'm not sure why they were enabled since everything else is disabled), I adjusted some display settings (I think I had to re-enable the Zoom setting), and I signed into my Google account in the Google Calendar app. I'm pretty sure that is all I had done.

I know I more complete test would be to do a clean install of iOS 14 and then set the phone up as new, versus restoring from a backup, but then the testing process after that would take days. I'd have to set up as new and then check for the problem after every single app install, settings tweak, account sign in, etc. I'm just not willing to do that.

I also looked into downgrading the iOS, but 14.2 is the only signed version right now, and it looks like trying to downgrade to an unsigned version is pretty involved.

I no longer have hopes that Apple is going to address this problem though. It has been a known issue for a long time, just do the search I suggested and see for yourself. For a product that prides itself on "it just works", I'm pretty underwhelmed.

Good luck to all!

I'm on an Ipad Pro iOS 14.3. I was having the endless spinning wheel just left of the wifi icon also - it has been spinning for a week or more. Taking a cue from the posts here, I turned off Siri in Settings, then powered the device down and up again, then restarted Siri for input using the button only. After a half hour of use, the spinning wheel has not returned! Thanks.

Until they fix this across the board, I do not believe that returning the device will change anything. The workaround that has worked for me across devices (having traded mine in to no avail) is to hold the home button down until Siri is engaged and the small visual circle that appears changes shape and size a couple of times. Sometimes I have to repeat the task or tap the visual "Siri circle" several times until it stops spinning. That has consistently worked for me.

Wow, same with me. I had it on the 7 although it eventually went away I spent hours trying to figure it out with Apple support but could never find where the issue came from. AnywAys the issue has been resolved by disabling “dictation.” Please contact Apple support the more people that do the higher priority and let them know that turning dictation off resolves the issue

I purchased a new iPad 8th generation and was having the same issue. I spoke with a senior advisor at Apple and they told me they were aware of the problem and that it was considered a bug and would probably be fixed in an upcoming update but didn’t know when that would be. I called back again and got a different advisor and they had me do the following which appeared to work:

Settings, General, Reset, Reset Network.

after doing this you will have to reload your Wi-Fi, but it did make the spinning wheel go away. How long it will stay away I don’t know yet I haven’t had a chance to test us.

Turn off your automatic Siri. Turn off Siri listening. That’s what I did. Which made my battery last longer. And it only comes on when I touch the microphone or I call for Siri.

I saw previously that your issue was with the iPad, and I don’t mean to exclude your issue, it’s just that while searching online for people experiencing this problem, it overwhelmingly seems to be new SE phones. That’s leading me to believe that the more isolated cases of other iOS models which have the problem might actually be a separate issue for those owners (such as yourself). Perhaps not though.

Same exact issue for you?

• Persistent spinning network activity indicator under the following conditions
• Only when activating dictation through the Apple keyboard, regardless of the app the dictation is being used in
• Occurs on cellular or WiFi
• Does NOT occur if using third-party dictation, such as GBoard and Google dictation services
• A phone restart or network reset are the only ways to get the spinning indicator to go away

Update! Just finished with the Apple support people. If you, of course back up first, and then erase the iPad and start it up without using a back up - so set up manually - the spinning circle is gone.

Then I will use the word “expected” instead of normal. Speech to text (dictation) requires continuous two-way communication between your phone and Apple’s servers; no interpretation is done on the phone, it is all done on the server. This communication starts when you use any speech to text feature and continues for as long as the app that you are using remains active, whether you are actually speaking or not, because it has to listen for anything that you might say. The spoken content is not stored on the phone then forwarded, it is sent in real time to the server. It also refines what it has returned as the result of the speech to text interpretation after the initial result, which you can sometimes see if you look at the initial result, then watch it. What you might try is to kill whatever app you were using for dictation.

iOS 14.5 confirmed fixed the issue. You don't need 15. Now the wheel spins only when there is real network activity. Doesn't get stuck on.

I understand how dictation through the server works. No one has complained about the network activity indicator while actively using dictation. We’ve been clear on this, the problem is the fact that the network activity indicator continues even after dictation is done. Not just “done” as in not talking, but done as in the speech-to-text window has closed and the app you were dictating in has been closed. The icon will display and persistently spin for hours on end. I’ve only seen it stopped three ways: a restart, a network settings reset, or activating Siri.

The problem was occurring 100% of the time I used dictation. Ever since I enabled Siri on my phone though, the problem occurs about 50% of the time.

If this was normal, it would occur with everyone using dictation, and would occur all of the time. It’s a glitch, bug, or whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, you can now also call it expected.

Btw, the spinning network indicator has never even displayed while I used a third-party keyboard and dictation services, let alone stayed persistent.

Exactly that. It started with iOS 14 (never had the problem before; have been using iPhones since iOS 6) and it just occurs when I use the dictation service within an app like WhatsApp. When I refrain from using dictation everything remains perfectly fine. Sometimes it is possible to get rid of the spinning wheel by using Siri with some random request. Since iOS 14.3 a restart of the device helps also, before that even a restart didn't help on my iPhone SE (2020)