onscreen rounded black square with a bright white center

[jimac]

How can I get rid of this little rounded black square with a bright white light center that suddenly appeared in the bottom right corner and won't go away from my iPad mini 7 with iPadOS 26.2? I searched everywhere in Settings with no luck. It contains links to Notification Center, Custom, Device, Siri, Control Center and Home, all of which I already know how to access. Ultra annoying and appears in ALL my apps. It's even on my Lock Screen!

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I went to the Apple Support Community at "discussions.apple.com/welcome" and tried to post the above to "Search or ask a question". The question was too long for that so I had to shorten it to the following:

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How can I get rid of this little rounded black square with a white light center that suddenly appeared in the bottom right corner and won't go away from my iPad? Links Notification Center, Custom, Device, Siri, Control Center & Home. VERY annoying!

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THAT resulted in my INSTANTLY being transferred to a new page:

403 Forbidden
_____________________

Apple

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Obviously I'm not the first person to ask that question. I like writing on a nice clean screen and a stupid little distraction like that thing isn't conducive to that. It blocks out whatever is in that corner of the screen and permanently reduces my screen size. I may be able to ignore it after several weeks, but why should I bother? This whatever-it-is doesn't appear on any of my other Apple devices. . . . Yet.

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I'm posting this here on MacRumors in the hope that someone here knows how to disable this thing.

 

[hg.wells]

Have you got assistive touch turned on:

Use AssistiveTouch on iPhone

With AssistiveTouch on iPhone, you can adapt the touchscreen to fit your needs—if certain gestures don’t work for you, replace them with a tap or other gesture, or use a simple sound.

support.apple.com

 

[Davidalan]

To turn off AssistiveTouch, go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch, then toggle the switch off; this removes the floating button from your screen, but you can also use the Accessibility Shortcut (triple-click the side/Home button) to quickly toggle it on or off.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Open Settings: Tap the Settings app icon on your iPhone or iPad.
   
   
2. Go to Accessibility: Scroll down and tap on Accessibility.
   
   
3. Select Touch: Under the "Physical and Motor" section, tap Touch.
   
   
4. Toggle Off: Tap the AssistiveTouch switch to turn it off (it will turn from green to gray). The floating circle will disappear.
   

Quick Toggle (Accessibility Shortcut):

• • If you have the shortcut set up, you can triple-click the Side button (or Home button on older devices) to quickly hide or show the AssistiveTouch button.

 

[casperes1996]

My first thought was assistive touch too but a screenshot would help figuring this out

 

[HouseLannister]

That white corner is showing you that you can resize the window. Only way to disable is to turn off windowed apps and just use apps full screen (1st option in screenshot below).

Edit: Without seeing it for myself, it is also possible you made the corner effect look worse by turning off transparency or reduce motion. A lot of those accessibility settings make everything kind of wonky in unexpected ways. Set it back to default and see if it is manageable before you turn off multitasking altogether.

 

[jimac]

Thanks to all of you. Yes it was the AssistiveTouch floating button. Since I am handicapped myself, I appreciate that Apple created that feature for those who need it. Here’s a photo of it:

I just bought a Yunzii QL75 retro typewriter keyboard because it resembled the green Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter that I used back in college. But the QL75 had the problem that pressing Caps Lock changed the keyboard language rather than enabling Caps Lock and I couldn’t find anything in iPadOS Settings to correct that. So I must have enabled the AssistiveTouch button while I was trying to find a way to disable that function.

I finally found an aside, I think in Apple Support, that the Hardware Keyboard had to be connected in order to disable the Caps Lock-change language option, so “thank you” also to whoever mentioned that tidbit.

This Yunzii keyboard, by the way, really does feel like using my old Olivetti typewriter -- love it, but of course using apps like Ulysses or Scrivener it’s vastly improved over the old days. For one thing, it has a “1” key. I had to use the lowercase “L” for a “1” with my old manual typewriter! I won’t mention all the ink and oil on my fingers.

Anyway, thank you again. I’m using all my apps full-screen again. Cheers, and Happy New Year!

 

[Davidalan]

You can assign actions to function keys (F1-F12) on an iPad by using
Settings > General > Keyboard > Hardware Keyboard > Modifier Keys to remap basic keys like Command or Caps Lock, or by enabling Full Keyboard Access (Accessibility) to customize shortcuts for system commands, but for complex app-specific actions, the Shortcuts App (creating a custom shortcut and running it via Full Keyboard Access or Switch Control) or third-party apps like BetterTouchTool (BTT) offer deeper customization for external keyboards, especially for gaming or complex workflows.

Basic Key Remapping (Built-in)

1. Connect your external keyboard.
2. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Hardware Keyboard.
3. Tap Modifier Keys and change functions for keys like Caps Lock, Control, Option, or Command.
4. Advanced System Shortcuts (Built-in)
5. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards.
6. Turn on Full Keyboard Access.
7. Tap Commands, select a command, and press your desired key combination to assign it
8. https://www.google.com/search?q=asi...8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#lfId=ChxjMe

 

[jimac]

Thank you. After I figure out what my external keyboard's Function keys do as is, I'm sure I'll want to modify many of them to do more and you've pointed out a lot of means to do so. I'm not a gamer, but there are many actions I can add to aid in writing and speed up that process. I really enjoy writing on my iPads, they're with me everywhere, for many uses, though I tend to finish what I write on my MacBook. Thanks for helping me, it's always fun to learn something new.