bluetooth icon missing in ios 12

javelin98 wrote:

It's bad enough that they decided to turn my BT back on every day; now I can't even tell if I successfully turned it off.

If it's turning on again every day, that probably means you're trying to turn it off from the Control Center. The BT button in the Control Center does not turn BT off. It disconnects everything connected by BT. If you want to turn BT off, go to Settings>BlueTooth>Off. It will stay off until you turn it back on again. You can also ask Siri to turn it off for you.

Use Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in Control Center with iOS 11 and later - Apple Support

Whatever explanation that any of us provides, other than the fact that Apple removed it is pure speculation, and prohibited by the forum TOU. Fact is, that Apple decided to remove it, and if you don't like it, you can provide feedback to Apple here, https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

I can open my Control Center to see if Bluetooth is on, but to be honest, I've never turned it off. I have it on to connect my Apple Watch, and it is left on so that when I get in the car it will automatically connect to the car. If you feel you need to turn it off and on, then you can disconnect it from the current device in Control Center, or you can turn it off completely with Siri or going to Settings.

Just as an addition to what deggie had to say, the newer phones do not have the space in the status bar to display the Bluetooth icon, so it seems Apple may just have applied that in the newer iOS to all devices. You cannot see the battery percentage there either on the newer phones. Space gets to be a premium with the lack of room in the status bar, and since all of the newer phones since the iPhone X cannot display them, my thoughts are above. You have to option to provide feedback to Apple here, https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html. At this time, the Control Center is where you need to view it.

Icon isn't missing - it has just been changed. And to control the bluetooth radio, you'd still do it the old way, either through Settings or swipe up on Control Center to temporarily toggle it.

!cultOfApple wrote:

Icon isn't missing - it has just been changed. And to control the bluetooth radio, you'd still do it the old way, either through Settings or swipe up on Control Center to temporarily toggle it.

Nobody is suggesting you don't control Bluetooth via settings or control center. But the Bluetooth Symbol itself has indeed been removed. It used to appear on the home screen. It's not there anymore because it doesn't exist at all.

No, I'm saying the Bluetooth symbol has been removed whether a Bluetooth device is paired or not. Again, this is not the Bluetooth symbol in Settings or Control Center. This is the symbol, which until iOS 12 appeared on the screen of every iPhone. Apple for the last couple years has been leading little by little to understand there really is no need to EVER turn Bluetooth off. The Bluetooth radio, when not paired with a device uses virtually now power and there is no security issues due to Apples encoding algorithms. I can't remember the last time I had any need to turn Bluetooth off.

Sorry, but that isn't a major issue and not having it on the front page doesn't stop you from turning it off.

As Chris already explained those that had the iPhone X haven't had the Bluetooth symbol for a year now, there just wasn't room for it with the notch. Apple doesn't like having endless versions of operating systems so with the release of the new iPhones they removed it in iOS 12 altogether. For iPhone X users having it on the Control Center page was redundant.

j.oneill wrote:

Guys, don't bicker. The discussion is about the missing Icon not you venerable knowledge or 007 abilities. With over 100.000 points in the discussion, does anyone have an answer? Genuinely curios

The icon is missing because Apple removed it. If you disagree with Apple's decision you can let them know at https://apple.com/feedback.

As to why they removed it, we, as users, have no way of knowing.

That is all the answer you can get.

j.oneill wrote:

Lawrence, as I believe god has better things to do, I reckoned it's missing because Apple removed it, and I know that disagreeing won't get me anywhere so I won't. I was just asking if anyone shared my curiosity as to why all other connections are shown when on, and BT is not. Is it because it's the less vulnerable? The less used? They may be planning to phase it out? Sounds like a more stimulations and less conflictual discussion than the vulnerability BT.

Well, my guess, which is speculating about Apple policy and against ToU, is that the status bar was getting too crowded and they had to remove something (note that no iPhone X series has ever had a Bluetooth icon). And the Bluetooth icon was the least useful among everything else that appears in the status bar. And, as it wasn't on the X anyway, by removing it completely it also simplified the code that generates the status bar as it didn't need to figure out what type of device it was displaying on. It's important to know about the cellular connection, and important to know about the Wi-Fi connection. And users want to know if their cellular connection is 3G, LTE or LTE over Wi-Fi, and want to know their battery status. It is not important to know about Bluetooth. And that last sentence leads to the off-topic posts in this thread.

Removed from the device because it was redundant. Bluetooth still works and there should be a chain link that appears when something is connected

If you take a moment to read through this extensive thread, you will see that by Apple design, the Bluetooth icon no longer appears in the status bar. It has nothing to do with whether Bluetooth is turned on or or connected to a device or not.

I'm not objecting to keeping it. But Apple chose to remove it and I'm not in the least bothered about it. I don't EVER turn Bluetooth off in settings. I see no reason it needs to be turned off. Having been on this forum for years, I don't believe there's been one reported case of ANY iPhone EVER being hacked via Bluetooth. To worry about something that is beyond rare is just not worth worrying over. I realize this is called Apple Discussions. It's not really a discussion forum. It's a forum to ask a technical support question for other users to offer assistance. This thread isn't going to get Apple to do anything. They removed the symbol, so it's not a problem because it was intentional and working as intended.

If you or anyone wants to let Apple know you'd like it back, you can provide feedback to Apple, via this link: Feedback - iPhone - Apple

There is no point in debating this. We're users just like you. No one has stated the reality behind removing the symbol, because Apple made the decision to remove the symbol and they don't respond here and since no one on this forum works for Apple, only Apple knows.

I have never turned Bluetooth off on any phone I've had, one which I kept for 4 years, with no degradation of battery life. If you actually read the link I provided from Lawrence, you'd now know the Bluetooth radio, by itself uses infinitely small amounts of power.

If however you don't like this (am guessing you don't) you should provide feedback via the link which has been provided a couple times in this thread. That's how you let Apple know directly.

On the iPhone X because of the notch Apple moved it to the Control Center. Same for the phones that were just released. But it was redundant there because you could just look at the Bluetooth button and see it was on. So Apple just standardized it in iOS 12.

Bluetooth beacons transmit information to you they do not necessarily capture your location. Your GPS, WiFi and cell signal capture where you are. Turn them off.

Your opinions on the matter are, frankly, irrelevant. This is a technical support forum. The question of what happened to the "missing" indicator has been answered. That is, it was removed intentionally. As to why, or what might be a better idea, those issues are out of scope for these forums. Please move on.