How to turn off red badges on iPhone apps

Note the red badge on the Settings icon

Most of us know what to do when our Mail app or Facebook app displays a red badge with a white number: Open the app and deal with the number of emails or messages indicated.

But what does it mean when it’s your Settings app that displays a red badge with the number “1”?

A fairly tech-savvy houseguest posed that question to me a few months ago, and I was puzzled, not having encountered it myself.

But last week I had my “aha” moment. Apple released a new version of iOS 5 system software, I had yet to download and install it, and there it was: the little red badge.

Once the download and installation were complete, the badge disappeared.

I did a bit of research on icon badges in general, and discovered they mean different things for different apps. (For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they mean when they appear on the LinkedIn app.)

If you find an app’s badges just plain old annoying, go to Settings > Notifications and scroll through the (non-alphabetized) list of apps. Tap on the name of the app with the offending badge, and turn off the Badge App Icon.