9to5Mac writer credits iPhone Call Screening with blocking weekly spam calls
A 9to5Mac writer says Apple's Call Screening, introduced with iOS 26, has stopped every spam and scam call since it was enabled earlier this year, while genuine callers still got through.
Call Screening was added to the Phone app with iOS 26, a year before the column appeared. The writer says that while iOS 27 has brought a large number of new features to the iPhone, the change that made the biggest difference to using the device as a phone came in the earlier release. They delayed enabling it because they were worried about missing genuine calls, and only switched it on earlier this year, selecting the Ask Reason for Calling option.
Before that, most of the unwanted calls came from companies posing as the writer's mobile carrier. Some, in their assessment, were third-party resellers hoping to persuade them to switch networks, while others appeared to be attempts to obtain payment details or to collect data more broadly. The calls arrived at least once a week, and the number of job scam calls was also rising.
Since the feature was enabled, none of those calls has got through. In the large majority of cases, the writer says, callers hang up as soon as they reach the automated response; a smaller number have stated a reason for calling that made it immediately clear the call should be rejected.
The writer reports no indication that genuine callers have been unable to reach them. A number of legitimate calls were filtered by the screening process, but in each case the caller explained who they were and why they were calling, after which the call was answered.
The writer says they try to limit how widely their mobile number is shared, providing it only when an organization both requires it and is likely to make legitimate use of it, and substituting a fictitious number when a web form insists on one. The UK's telecoms regulator publishes a range of 1,000 mobile numbers that have never been allocated, so a fake number will not result in someone else being spammed. Even so, the writer has held the number for decades, and it has found its way onto marketing lists; some companies also use robocallers to dial random numbers. The volume of such calls increased noticeably earlier this year.
Call Screening can be turned on in the Settings app by scrolling down to the App section, selecting Phone, and then scrolling to Screen Unknown Callers. The writer recommends enabling it.