Although Voice Control can be very useful, a common complaint we often get involves accidental ‘pocket’ voice dialing. Some people may also find this feature annoying. Therefore, you may want to turn it off.
You can use Voice Control or Siri. Voice Control can be activated by pressing and holding the Home button, only if Siri is turned off. This means that if you are using Siri, you cannot use Voice Control.
Voice Control lets you make phone and FaceTime calls and control music playback by speaking into the phone’s built-in microphone.
Here is how to disable Voice Control on your iPhone:
Option # 1
1.The first thing you need to do is to set a passcode. You may have done this before. If you have not already, do this.
- If you are using an iPhone 5s or later, go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode. If you are using a device without Touch ID (e.g., iPhone 4), go to Settings > Passcode
- Tap “Turn Passcode On”
- Enter a passcode. This passcode is important. Do not forget it. You will now need this passcode when you (a) turn on your device (b) update your device (c) erase your device etc.
2.Now go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode > and enter your new passcode then tap Voice Dial and disable Voice Dial.
Please note that Music Voice Control is always enabled this only turns off Voice Dialing.
Option # 2
You may also try this method. This method involves turning on Siri. Here is how:
1.Turn Siri on by going to Settings > General > Siri and toggle Siri on. Enabling Siri disables Voice Control. However Siri can also make accidental phone calls. To prevent this, you need to enable passcode (see option # 1).
2.Now go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode, In the “Allow Access When Locked” section, toggle off Siri.
This means that to be able to use Siri, you have to enter your passcode thus it will prevent making accidental ‘pocket’ phone calls while your iPhone is in your pocket or handbag.
Voice Control is also available on iPod touch. You may use these methods if you want to disable Voice Control on your iPod touch also.
See also:
^^^ That last procedure finally worked on my iPhone XR. Thank you.
I’m staggered that, per Apple, a “faulty headset” can switch on a feature that is able to launch apps, and that there wasn’t an obvious “turn this feature off in one place” switch that kills Siri and Voice Control.
Feels like two things to me:
1) a “buy our wireless headsets” design-for-annoyance feature, just like the omission of the headphone jack in the first place.
2) a security hole with a curious linkage to “damaged” external hardware. Security folks must have pricked their ears up at the sound of Voice Control behaving this way.
This problem has been persisiting on my wife’s iPhone irrespective of however many settings changes I seem to make. Go to apple.com, click the support tab, in the search box type ‘disable voice control’, this is the results page at time of writing:
And this is the first result which offers a pathway to a fix:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207301
“Turn off Voice Control on your iPhone
Learn how to adjust the Side or Home button settings for Voice Control and Siri on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
On an iPhone X or later, you can prevent Voice Control or Siri from responding when you press and hold the Side button on your device. On an iPhone 8 or earlier, you can prevent Voice Control or Siri from responding when you press and hold the Home button on your device.
Follow these steps:
On an iPhone X or later, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Side Button. On an iPhone 8 or earlier, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Home Button.
Under Press and Hold to Speak, select one of these options:
Siri: Siri will respond when you press and hold the Home button.
Voice Control: Classic Voice Control will respond when you press and hold the Home button. This will also turn off Siri.
Off: There will be no response when you press and hold the Home button.
The press and hold setting applies only to the Side or Home button. If you’re using a headset, and it unexpectedly activates Siri or Voice Control, make sure that your headset is fully inserted into the device.
If you have a loose or poor headset connection, frayed cables, or moisture on the connector or remote, it might unexpectedly activate Siri or Voice Control. If the issue persists, try using a different headset.
Learn more about Siri on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Published Date: September 26, 2018”
As I have tried all these settings changes, it seems that the issue arises due a loose/broken/moist headphone jack, so it looks like that’s next on my list. Good luck people, this is a frustrating and unnecessary issue, Apple really should have implemented a proper fix for this some time ago.
Yeah, this is it for Apple. I’ll never buy one of their phones again: they just don’t function correctly anymore. 🙁
Wow!!
People asking Apple for turning off both Siri and Voice Control. Looks like nobody cares. As a customer I refusing to buy next Apple product.
I’m so fed up with apple that I’m buying a Samsung to get free from voice control and Siri it seems like every 1 second while listening to music it stops or it goes back.
Very useful!!! Thank you!
I just tried the Turkish language fix. I’ll update on whether it works. But if this works, Apple should be ashamed that a feature as annoying as Voice Control can only be disabled through a hack. When they removed the headphone jack I started considering leaving for a different phone, and not this Voice Control nonsense is just reinforcing that.