spinning wheel icon next to wi-fi indicating network activity

I’ve used voice-to-text a few times over the past two days after the 14.5 update. I’ve used it on WiFi and on cellular, and I no longer have the persistent spinning network activity indicator. BUT, I’ve also noticed that the spinning indicator doesn’t appear to be displaying at all when using the voice-to-text.

Obviously there IS network activity when using that feature, because the audio of your words is being sent to Apple’s speech recognition server in order to be transcribed to text. So the correct behavior should be for the network indicator to display while using the feature, and then stop displaying once you are finished and the text has been transcribed. I have confirmed that this is still the behavior when using Siri. The network indicator displays while Siri is activated, and stops when Siri is deactivated. The indicator just doesn’t display when using voice-to-text from the keyboard, regardless of which app that the keyboard is being used in.

What I am currently experiencing tends to make me think Apple couldn’t fix the problem correctly, and instead is now just preventing the network indicator from displaying at all while using voice-to-text. If that is the case, I would probably prefer that scenario over what we have been experiencing with the persistent spinning indicator, but it still doesn’t feel right.

Can anyone else confirm their experiences?

@Machine_Ruse, the voice to text shouldn't show the spinner. The data that goes up and back is fast and small. The indicator shows up after a minimum amount of network traffic, not for every little thing. Mail for example has it spinning a bunch (maybe more since 14.5). As I stated earlier, when the spinner started (and kept) spinning on voice to text, it wasn't using the network. I had a monitor on it. It was just a UI bug.

dedfar wrote:

… yes, they stopped the network indicator from being used at all during dictation. Which in turn did solve the problem :)

I don’t believe most people (especially here) would consider that to be an actual “solution”, but simply hiding «the problem».

After three years it’s finally fixed itself after I left the phone in airplane mode for more than two hours-Tried everything under the sun before this ,even transferred from the old phone to the new phone.

I just got off the phone with apple. They have me updating to 14.2 I wish I would have checked this discussion before my call with them.

This discussion thread may help you. --> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7592034

I’m relieved to say that with the latest software update my 2020 SE does not spin anymore. So far so good for last week. Using dictation with all text msgs and it’s behaving so far....

That includes things like streaming music, updating content. Do you subscribe to Apple Music, iTunes Match, iTunes Genius, News+, TV+ or a similar service? Any iCloud sync settings turned on in Settings/[your name]/iCloud?

I have exactly the same issue with mine. Started a couple months ago. I DID backup my device and do a full restore, and felt certain that would correct the problem (as did the Apple support techs who were advising me). I was honestly devastated to find that it still exhibits the glitch/bug even after restoring to factory settings.

I used to use dictation ALL THE TIME and now I avoid it at all costs because I know what will happen after 1-3 times, and I’ll have to force restart again. I really miss using dictation/voice to text.

I’m just adding another data point, unfortunately I don’t have a solution either.

Got an iPhone SE (2020) last week. This is my first iPhone, after being a diehard Android fan since 2009. I manually setup the phone and noticed this issue at some point that same day. I was not quite sure what was normal on iPhones at the time, so I didn’t take note whether or not this network activity indicator was constantly spinning before I updated to iOS 14.2, but that is the version I’m on at the moment.

I can also confirm it starts as soon as I use dictation, and only a restart or a networking settings reset seems to temporarily fix it, until I use dictation again. I have not tried the “Hey Siri” fixes, because I haven’t activated Siri on the phone yet.

I’ve never had WhatsApp installed (for the person who thought that app might be the culprit).

Before finding this thread, I’d done a fair amount of searching on the problem and the iPhone SE definitely seems to be over-represented with the issue.

Yep, I was aware of what DNS stands for, and all I was saying is that it is used to make the initial connection. Translating the website name into an IP address is one of the things that gets done to make the connection.

What I am suggesting is that there is an issue with the DNS service, since it appears to continue running and using data when the phone was idle (except the spinning network indicator).

Should I expect the DNS Service to continue using data in the background?

Yes, the DNS Services is bundled under System Services in the cellular data usage statistics, so definitely Apple services. I didn’t know how much data a single DNS lookup would use, but I expected it was on the level of bytes, and not kB, which is why I pointed out the other day that I thought that amount of data usage by that service, over that amount of time, was suspicious and possibly the culprit.

During that time frame, I did have a couple text exchanges, so I knew the Messaging Services usage was explained. And I was not suspicious of the Push Notifications either, as I’m aware of the implications of having push notifications.

However, other than a couple text messages, I did not do anything else on the phone during that time which would’ve explained the DNS usage. It sound like you are confirming my suspicions that the usage from that service was abnormal.

Interesting find. When I first discovered the constant spinning indicator, but before having figured out that dictation is what triggered it, I checked out my wife’s iPhone SE to see if her phone had the same issue and it did not seem to have the problem. After I discovered that dictation is what triggered it, I forgot to go back and check her phone...until this morning.

I cannot induce this problem on her phone, which should be identical. She is on the same iOS version (14.2 version 18B92) but she has had her iPhone SE since it was first released (might’ve even been a preorder).

So now I’m wondering if this is a hardware issue.

For those of you SE owners experiencing the problem, are your phones recent purchases like mine?

BTW, the DNS Services is probably NOT the problem. I re-ran those troubleshooting steps, letting the indicator spin for over an hour while on cellular data, and DNS Services usage did not change at all this time. A couple services used a small amount of data, but nothing that stood out. I can list the specifics if anyone thinks that is still helpful.

iTunes? Because I completely wiped it and then just went to the App Store and downloaded all the apps I had before and then I had to sign into each one individually to get it started again. I still have not bothered to download music or movies or anything. Christmas break is coming though #SomethingToDo

Yes, unfortunately Lawrence Finch is correct. Apparently, Apple has had 13 years to fix this problem and has been unable or unwilling to do so. They will let you return the phone and exchange it for a “replacement device”, but I’m not sure how you avoid getting another one that does the same thing.

Not all iPhone SE’s have this problem though. There are three in my household, and mine is the only one that exhibits this behavior.

Interestingly, based on the serial number, it appears my phone was made in a different factory than the other two. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but it was the only difference I could find, other than we don’t all have the identical selection of apps installed.