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Your iPhone Can Ask Why Someone's Calling Before You Pick Up

I just explain to companies that I know are going to call back with a 0800 not the number I originally called or a blocked number that I have call screening on and so far they all get though just fine leaving a reason why they call. Google has had a very similar feature for a while, and people seem okay using it. I'm in the UK and I think al major network providers support it, not sure if all MVNO's do. Works well though.
 
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ericinboston said:
I don't understand why Apple/the phone companies don't attack spam calls with a much easier process:

  1. When I get a likely Spam call, AT&T tells me it's Spam Alert and 99% of the time it's correct
  2. I block the number (yes, I know there are tens of thousands of phone number combinations spammers can use)
  3. Apple should communicate to AT&T that I want this number blocked because it's spam
  4. AT&T should do a daily or weekly lookup and if they see 203-123-4567 blocked more than 200 times, AT&T as a company should somehow block that number from dialing in the first place
I know there are other ways spammers get around the phone companies (or at least used to get around them decades ago), but at the end of the day, it's the PHONE COMPANY that is providing me phone service and should be responsible for annoying spammers. It's harassment plain and simple.
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It is not the number they can block, they have to analyze the incoming routing of the call. If that mismatches with the subscriber number it is identified as spam call. The dialer usually just spoofs some random number, or even the number of an actual company so blocking will often only cause harm to some innocent subscriber. There are still unwanted calls from "legitimate" numbers, but those are rare these days, as they can be easily traced back to the origin, and as such will only be short-lived if they are not really a legitimate business.
 
Doesn’t work for me at all, for some reason. If I’m not looking and they explain why they’re calling it still rings through. I’m being tortured daily by “loan approval agents” and it rings through every single time.
 
Will be a very useful feature if it works as intended. Looking forward to trying it out on my new 17 Pro Max in a few days time.
 
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I had to realize, that this function is confusing wanted business callers so they hang up. When I call them back, they keep telling me, there was a confusing voice announcement.
I had to turn it off again.
 
slkjflla said:
Either I'm being stupid or this isn't available in the EU
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German living in Germany here, iPhone 12 ProMax, iOS 26.0.1, language and region set to Germany.

The feature is available on my phone and can be turned on. I haven’t yet tried to check if or how well it works, though.
 
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Robin Bonathan said:
I am eu and it is available for me
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can I ask which model iPhone you have? It's not showing up on my iPhone 12 Pro Max, and I checked support on Apple.com and there does not seem to be an exclusion by model number, so it really should just be there but it's not (although it *was* during one of the developer betas).

Next up is to contact chat or telephone support from Apple I guess, but I'm trying to gather more information before I call them.
 
Baumi said:
German living in Germany here, iPhone 12 ProMax, iOS 26.0.1, language and region set to Germany.

The feature is available on my phone and can be turned on. I haven’t yet tried to check if or how well it works, though.
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interesting. Not showing up in my 12 ProMax. I'm in France, language set to English. Are you single SIM or perhaps dual? I'm one physical SIM and one e-SIM (which is what 12s supported).
 
If you have two lines from two eSIMs from the same carrier, does turning this on activate it on both phone numbers?
 
G5isAlive said:
Presumably because you can readily identify who is calling from your list and screen yourself 😎
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There are many times I would like to know the reason for the call before I pick up. And many contacts are just acquaintances or work contacts that I may or may not want to talk to depending on the reason for the call.
bmark said:
The point of call screening is to screen out unwatched calls.

Do you want to call screen your friends and family on your contact list?
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Not everyone on my contact list is friends or family.
 
Rafagon said:
There are many times I would like to know the reason for the call before I pick up. And many contacts are just acquaintances or work contacts that I may or may not want to talk to depending on the reason for the call.


Not everyone on my contact list is friends or family.
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Focus modes may help you.
 
Rafagon said:
There are many times I would like to know the reason for the call before I pick up. And many contacts are just acquaintances or work contacts that I may or may not want to talk to depending on the reason for the call.


Not everyone on my contact list is friends or family.
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Then let the call go to voicemail and call them back if you want to. Call screening isn't your personal assistant.
 
Grayburn said:
Pretty sure Google didn't invent call screening 🙄
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Which cell phone had automatic call screening like this before the Google Pixel 9? Samsung and Apple are just releasing theirs this year. At least Apple isn't three years behind this time like with automatic OTP deletion.
 
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