Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
66,551
35,784


Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers.

truecaller.jpeg

Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update.

iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ Apps ➝ Phone, and selecting Call Blocking & Identification. Here, users should enable all Truecaller switches and open the Truecaller app again.

Truecaller told TechCrunch it built a new server architecture to enable the new feature, and created a separate, encrypted database for iOS, alongside its existing larger database for Android users:
Apple's Phone app makes encrypted requests to this database and gets encrypted responses that are only decrypted on the client (iPhone) to show the caller ID in real time. This process is called "homomorphic encryption," as the computations use encrypted data instead of decrypting them first, while decryption happens on the client to display caller information if it matches with the data stored on the server.
Truecaller has around 750,000 iPhone-using subscribers out of around 2.6 million subscribers in total, where the majority are Android users. However, 40% of Truecaller’s revenue is from iOS subscriptions, thanks to a 5x conversation rate to its premium tier on iOS compared to Android, and 80% higher revenue from iPhone subscribers.

In addition to the new feature support, Truecaller has updated its interface, with the caller's name appearing in bold over their number. The latest version also includes automatic blocking of spam calls, while other improvements include the ability to search for previously identified calls, going as far back as 2,000 previous numbers in the Recents list in the Phone app.

Prior to iOS 18, Truecaller had to rely on a locally saved dictionary of limited phone numbers on iOS. The Android app has offered real-time caller information for some time, so the latest iOS update is bringing feature parity across platforms. Truecaller says it is now working on support for images to show up in the caller ID for its iOS users.

Truecaller's premium tier for iOS users starts at $9.99 a month per person, or $74.99/year. The company also has a family plan on iOS starting at $14.99/month or $99.99/year and the highest tier Gold subscription at $249 a year.

Article Link: Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: RustyIron
I have been a premium user of Truecaller for years and this is a welcome update.
It's almost sad this is not a native iPhone feature as real time call ID should have been implemented in smartphones many years ago - calls and texts being the most basic phone feature, yet also the most frustrating with spam and scams.
I guess SIM cards and phone numbers are a legacy technology that holds back more advanced smart features...
 
Years ago Truecaller had a feature to add address details to the contacts with one click. It was really useful. I wouldn’t pay $10 a month only for skipping a spam call. I was getting a lot of spam calls few years back. So, when I understand that it is a spam call, my trick was to talk aggressively to the male caller and talk dirty to the female callers. Now I get only one or two spam calls per year.
 
Years ago Truecaller had a feature to add address details to the contacts with one click. It was really useful. I wouldn’t pay $10 a month only for skipping a spam call. I was getting a lot of spam calls few years back. So, when I understand that it is a spam call, my trick was to talk aggressively to the male caller and talk dirty to the female callers. Now I get only one or two spam calls per year.
I think talking dirty to the male caller and aggressively to the female caller would also yield the same results!

Is this a US only thing?
 
Agree.
If it is urgent or genuine they can leave a message.

I used to do this as I tend to receive a lot of scam/spam calls.

But it has its drawbacks.

The main issue for me is that even if the caller leaves a message you are still missing out on truly time sensitive calls. For exemple where I live it is pretty common for people doing deliveries to call your mobile number before attempting a delivery (usually for stupid reasons such as checking you’re home, not being able to find the exact building, or being unable to use the intercom). If you send them straight to voicemail, sure they’ll leave a message saying that they couldn’t get in touch and another delivery will be attempted the next day, but still you’ll miss your delivery and you might have the same issue the next day.

The second more minor drawback is that even if it isn’t that time sensitive and they leave a voicemail, if the reason for their call is important to you you still have to call back and follow-up on that voicemail. And in some cases doing this can be a lot more time consuming than picking-up the original call. For exemple say you raised a query with whichever company you are a client of and someone is calling you with a proposed resolution. If you pick-up you’ll be directly connected to someone who’s familiar with the matter and has an answer for your. While if you call back later you might have to wait 10 minutes in a customer service queue to speak to someone, and once it eventually happens that person might need to spend the first 5 minutes of the call understanding your problem and looking up what someone else in the company had already done about it.

Ideally Apple would have an AI based caller screening feature whereby if it is an unknown number the phone picks up the call, asks the caller why they are calling, and shows this to you on the screen before you decides to take the call, while the caller is informed that they are on hold while you decide whether to take their call.

You can partly emulate this with the real time voicemail transcription feature, but it is not as practical.
 
Last edited:
I used to do this as I tend to receive a lot of scam/spam calls.

But it has its drawbacks.

The main issue for me is that even if the caller leaves a message you are still missing out on truly time sensitive calls. For exemple where I live it is pretty common for people doing deliveries to call your mobile number before attempting a delivery (usually for stupid reasons such as checking you’re home, not being able to find the exact building, or being unable to use the intercom). If you send them straight to voicemail, sure they’ll leave a message saying that they couldn’t get in touch and another delivery will be attempted the next day, but still you’ll miss your delivery and you might have the same issue the next day.

The second more minor drawback is that even if it isn’t that time sensitive and they leave a voicemail, if the reason for their call is important to you you still have to call back and follow-up on that voicemail. And in some cases doing this can be a lot more time consuming than picking-up the original call. For exemple say you raised a query with whichever company you are a client of and someone is calling you with a proposed resolution. If you pick-up you’ll be directly connected to someone who’s familiar with the matter and has an answer for your. While if you call back later you might have to wait 10 minutes in a customer service queue to speak to someone, and once it eventually happens that person might need to spend the first 5 minutes of the call understanding your problem and looking up what someone else in the company had already done about it.

Ideally Apple would have an AI based caller screening feature whereby if it is an unknown number the phone picks up the call, asks the caller why they are calling, and shows this to you on the screen before you decides to take the call, while the caller is informed that they are on hold while you decide whether to take their call.

You can partly emulate this with the real time voicemail transcription feature, but it is not as practical.
True.
But I'm willing to live with those inconveniences, should they arise.

The amount of Spam and phishing calls here in the UK is sometimes out of control and in my case ignorance is bliss.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CK1Czar
A very handy feature in IOS is to silence unknown callers. And it is free.

Unusable for those of us who need to take calls throughout the day from people that are often not in our contact list. I might get a dozen time-sensitive calls, that I can't send to voicemail, from numbers I don't recognize. We need better filtering options bult-in.

I don't get many scam/spam calls, though..maybe 1-2 per month. Scam iMessage and SMS, though?...oh boy..I get a ton.
 
Last edited:
A very handy feature in IOS is to silence unknown callers. And it is free.
I've been using this. Here I get a lot of calls from spoofed numbers (same area code, same first five digits as my number), sometimes four or five in a few minutes.

Providers are unwilling to do anything. Regulatory agencies only do something if you, the victim, provide plenty of information such as the company's name and phone number. The phone number is fake, if you get the call it is usually a recording of something along the lines of "Hi, I'm your bank, your card was cloned, call a 0800 number to get vaguely menacing threats until you pay us some money".

Much better to have my contacts updated and take calls only from known people -- until the scammers start to clone friends' lines!
 
Seem like a lot of money for features that many already exist in iOS and many more I get for free from AT&T.
I already have call screening in iOS, caller ID and telemarketer/scam call-blocking from AT&T. The rest of the unknown calls I just let go to VM where I have call screening and if they don't leave a message, it was spam/scam. If they do, I can pick up the call or just ignore them. Don't see why I would spend $75/yr and up to $250/yr...maybe some people are inundated by dozens of calls per day?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.