How to identify new iPad icons near battery indicator?

what does this blue one mean? Suddenly I’m seeing this. Also my iPad is refusing to charge.

This status icon appears, usually only briefly, when connecting some USB-C hubs or other USB-C accessories to the iPad.

Thank. Yes it us brief but the iPad does not want to charge so I wondered if it meant something else.

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. 

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?)

Apple engineers were not able to reproduce this, and were not able to determine what it is or where it comes from exactly; so they can’t take responsibility for it either; however, it has shown up briefly twice on the same machine it’s always shown up on, but this time only while a down load is in progress and then it disappears when that’s done; previously it would stick around for days, and only go away after a hard reset or remote screen access with Apple; during this process, Apple ran a full diagnostic on my machine and found nothing suspicious; it seems to be a harmless mystery to Apple - they don’t seem worried about it at all.

I should also add, I have since updated my iPhone in case it was ‘trying to sync’. No change, still just pulsing away and freaking me out.

emarybear wrote:

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?)

To the best of my knowledge, Apple have not yet offered any clarification regarding this new status icon or its specific meaning.

At this time, other than its unexpected appearance, there have been no reports of unexpected behaviour.

I have that symbol too! On my iPad Air 4. It popped up when I downloaded a book and hasn’t gone away. Also, my screen went black and I had a tiny white circling symbol pop up in the middle of my screen for like 10 seconds. Then, my screen came back on but I was now at my Lock Screen. This all happened within the last 20 minutes.

It’s notification of a download not complete. Cancel the download it goes away

This annoying symbol occurred this morning and no matter what I did persisted while I was trying to download three pdfs. It stopped the download on my iPad. However I downloaded the same pdfs on my iPhone with no problem and no symbol. Is this an Apple bug?

CathPr wrote:

This annoying symbol occurred this morning and no matter what I did persisted while I was trying to download three pdfs. It stopped the download on my iPad. However I downloaded the same pdfs on my iPhone with no problem and no symbol. Is this an Apple bug?

Apple have not yet offered any clarification regarding this new status icon or its specific meaning. All that we know, at this time, is that the icon indicates an incomplete download/synchronisation task.

I’m a bit late to the discussion, but I had this symbol pop up yesterday morning, and that same morning had gotten an alert that I could update for my iPad (my organization reviews updates before we can download or install them.)

So last night I told it to install the update (the symbol was still there when I plugged it in), and lo and behold, this morning the symbol was gone. I’ll check back later to see if it comes back but currently it’s not there. If it does come back I’ll make another reply and let y’all know.

How do I cancel the download?

After updating to iPadOS 18.4 and downloading a large ZIP file that icon appeared on my iPad as well. It persisted after the download was complete but disappeared again after I cleared the download from the Safari toolbar icon and locked the iPad screen (I did both in short succession, so I am not sure which of the two actions did the trick).