Some users report that quitting out of all open apps removes the spinning loading wheel indicator icon from their status bar. You can see if this is the culprit by disabling Background App Refresh by going to Settings > General > Background App Refresh > OFF Quit All Open Apps Sometimes, apps may be doing things in the background causing the loading wheel indicator to spin endlessly no matter what you are doing on the iPhone or iPad. This is an interesting trick but simply using Siri often works to get rid of the spinning wheel indicator. While sometimes simply waiting and doing nothing allows the process, widget, app, or task to complete and the loading indicator goes away on it’s own, if it doesn’t, here are some steps to fix it: Use SiriĪctivate Siri and perform any internet based Siri query, like summoning Siri and asking “Hey Siri, what’s the weather”.
How to Get Rid of the Spinning Loading Wheel Icon on iPhone or iPad
To test this, switch to another app like Safari or Chrome, and if the wheel indicator disappears then you know it’s probably a Home Screen widget, or something active on the Home Screen, that is causing the issue.Īnother curious reason the spinning wheel loading indicator can appear sometimes is due to a prior Siri query. While it can be challenging to track down which widget is causing the spinning icon wheel to show up on the Home Screen of an iPhone or iPad, it’s pretty easy to determine if any other app is involved. Often this is something like a Home Screen widget, whether it’s a bundled Apple widget like weather, clock, Find My, calendar, or a third party widget like Coinbase, Robinhood, custom photos widgets, or any of the myriad other third party Home Screen widgets out there. If you see the spinning wheel icon while you’re on the Home Screen of the iPhone or iPad, it is likely because something on the Home Screen is attempting to use the internet.
It looks like a spinning wheel made up of little dashes, and when it has gone haywire it will rotate endlessly, never going away. The spinning loading icon shows up when the iPhone or iPad is attempting to contact a remote server, or load data.