Disabling Voice Control, or at least muting it (iOS 10)

I have an iPhone 6S recently updated to iOS 10.0.1.

Holding the Home button for about 1 second activates Voice Control, with a characteristic loud double beep. This is very easy to activate accidentally, which is especially undesirable if I am trying to discreetly check my phone during a meeting or something. It's also easy to accidentally push the button when the phone is in my pocket (and locked).

I have no interest in actually using Voice Control at all, and it's very important to me that my phone not make unwanted noise.

Is it possible to:

• Disable Voice Control entirely?

• Stop it from beeping when activated? (It doesn't respect the hardware Mute switch.)

• Reduce the volume of the beep? (It doesn't seem to respect the ringer volume.)

• Prevent Voice Control from activating when the phone is locked? (I would also prefer that unauthorized people not be able to use its features.)

I saw Disable voice control on iPhone 4s, ios7.1 which suggests turning on Siri. Indeed, Siri has options to disable access on lock screen, and to turn off "voice feedback", making it silent. But for privacy reasons I do not want to enable Siri.

Since that question relates to much older versions of hardware and software, I am hoping that something has changed since then. (Also, unlike in that question, my Home button works fine physically.)

Solution 1:

As of iOS 10.2.1 (maybe as early as 10.2), it is possible to disable Voice Control.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Home Button

There is a setting PRESS AND HOLD TO SPEAK. Set this to Off. The descriptive text is "There will be no response when you press and hold the Home button."

I would like to thank Bob Briscoe for providing this answer, which he received from Apple Support. Since the question is protected, he cannot post an answer himself, so I am posting on his behalf.

Solution 2:

There seems to be no way to disable it under iOS 10.