Hate the new iPhone 15 Pro silent status bar bell? Here's how to get rid of it

It's now been around a day or so since early adopters managed to get their hands on the new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, not to mention the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. But it's the Pro and Pro Max that are proving particularly controversial right now after people started to realize that they have a new icon in their status bars that they really, really don't like.

Now that the new Pro iPhones don't have a traditional mute switch it's harder to tell if your phone is in silent mode or not. To help with that, Apple has added a new bell icon to the status bar, just beside the clock. When silent mode is turned on, the bell with a strike through it appears to warn people that they won't receive audible alerts when they receive notifications and calls. But some people seem to really dislike it. Thankfully, and very unlike Apple, there's an option to disable the bell altogether.

The good news was provided by YouTuber Marques Brownlee who shared the details in a post on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. Brownlee, better known as the MKBHD YouTube channel name, says that there is an option in the Settings app that removes the bell for good. It can be found in the Sounds & Haptics portion of the setting and is well worth checking out if you're someone who wants the icon gone from their status bar.

We think the icon is a good idea, but it's up to you of course. With there now being no physical reminder of current ringer state - the mute switch always made it clear which state the iPhone was in - it could be easy to think that your iPhone will make a noise when receiving notifications and calls when it won't. That might not bother some people - they might leave their iPhone in silent all of the time, for example - but for others, it could be a vital notification.

This only applies to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, of course. Those are the only iPhones currently on sale that have the Action button. The equally new iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus still have the familiar mute switch and continue to work the way everyone might expect. They don't have the option for the new bell icon in their status bars, either. They simply don't need it, although that will change when all iPhone get the Action button in future generations.