What is this blue dot when using iOS Safari?

[now i see it]

What’s this blue dot to the left of the address bar on iOS Safari? (iOS 14).

Is it just a meaningless rendering artifact? A bug? Or does it signify something?

Reloading the page doesn’t get rid of it.

Deleting history and cookies doesn’t get rid of it.

It can occur on different websites and on the favorites page but not consistently.
If I force quit Safari and reload the same page (which had the blue dot), the dot is gone.

 

[DeltaMac]

That blue semi-circle in Safari usually means that something is requesting the microphone to be active. You probably are viewing a page that will accept voice control, hence the blue dot showing that you could also use the microphone, not just the keyboard.

 

[Phil77354]

See if the Apple Support page below will help explain (it is also a very good reference explaining all of the various icons and symbols that appear for various reasons):

Status icons and symbols on your iPhone - Apple Support

Learn what the status icons and symbols at the top of your screen mean.

support.apple.com

 

[Phil77354]

Also (refer to the link in my previous post), the status indicator for microphone is orange, and green indicates camera or camera + microphone are in use.

 

[now i see it]

Ok - I checked out that Apple Status Icons webpage but there was no mention or description of the mysterious blue dot. According to that web page, it’s not related to a microphone prompt. And it’s in the wrong place anyway.

I further searched online about the mystery blue dot as others have experienced it too - but nobody on those forums had an answer either.

Since (in my case) it will disappear after quitting Safari then relaunching and maybe not reappear for a day or several days when visiting the same webpages — and Apple has no mention of it, my conclusion is … it’s a Safari rendering bug

 

[Phil77354]

There are discussions on the Apple Support forums on this topic if you want to dig further. I was curious myself and did a quick google search but didn't come up with anything definitive. There are quite a few posts claiming that it is the microphone indication but I don't think that is right, and as you saw yourself on the Apple page. You are experiencing this only with Safari? That seems very odd. It might be possible that the status icons are different for iOS 14 than the current iOS and the Apple support page may only represent iOS 15 although I would expect they would keep consistency. Puzzling.

 

[Newtons]

I have been seeing it for awhile on both safari and duckduckgo but now it shows up in my text messages. I have screenshots of it too
My phone has also been making random noises when I switch out of text messages. I have checked all my ring tones but none of them match it. At first I thought I was accidentally hitting the microphone button but it is not that either-