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Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

spencerdailey.com

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Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#41

Post by btilly »

I actually would like a regulatory solution for this.

Mandate a way for me to say whether incoming calls were spam. Require my phone company to pay me money every time I get spammed. Allow my phone company to, at their option, proactively block calls from specific upstreams and/or pass the charge to the specific upstreams.

Now from those incentives, the fines will naturally follow the upstreams to the source of the spam, and provide motivation for them to clean their acts up. Voila! (And if telephone companies decide that they need a more secure protocol to make spamming harder, that's up to them.)

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#42

Post by jakear »

gumby wrote: post #25
thatswrong0 wrote: post #4

I would love to be able to block all numbers coming from my area code and the first 3 digits of my number.. all my robo calls come from a number that looks just like mine.

That would be a problem for me as plenty of people I know have the same first six digits as they were allocated to Verizon Wireless about 20 years ago.

You could have an exception for people in your contact list.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#43

Post by mortenjorck »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #4

I would love to be able to block all numbers coming from my area code and the first 3 digits of my number.. all my robo calls come from a number that looks just like mine.

I use an app called WideProtect. It's not free, but it's also not a subscription. It lets you do exactly what you describe.

As a side note, CallKit on iOS doesn't support wildcard blocking, so WideProtect literally adds all the possible numbers within your specified range to the blocking database. This doesn't impact performance as far as I can tell (maybe calls ring another 100ms after they would normally), but there seems to be a delay of a few minutes after installing for it to show up as a block extension under Settings.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#44

Post by pavel_lishin »

nyjah wrote: post #28

Tapping Decline is not a great option because it actually tells the robocaller that you’re with your phone and are annoyed by the call, information I’d rather not give. Call me paranoid, but I take it a step further and absolutely believe whatever cold call company is calling knows when my phone is moving, or I am around it. I am the type of person that doesn't carry their phone all the time, I usually keep it in my…

Maybe there's a pattern to when you are around your phone, and when you aren't. Most of my robocalls are during the day - when I'm at a desk, with my phone. In the evening when my phone is away from me appears to be a less popular time to call.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#45

Post by btilly »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #4

I would love to be able to block all numbers coming from my area code and the first 3 digits of my number.. all my robo calls come from a number that looks just like mine.

That sounds very useful. But with one exception. As tempting as it may be, my ex should still be able to call me.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#46

Post by bradleyankrom »

IshKebab wrote: post #31
bradleyankrom wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you iive outside the U.S.?

I like in the UK and get maybe 5 robocalls a year. I'm not at all cautious about giving out my phone number and I've had the same number for at least 10 years. Why is this such a problem in America but not elsewhere?

I'm not an expert, but I would guess that regulation around these kinds of `nuisance` calls is tighter outside the U.S. We (in the U.S.) have a National Do Not Call Registry[0] but I don't know how strong the enforcement of violations is. With scammers, I think much of the problem is that they're using VoIP and other technologies that make it difficult to pin down exactly who is making the calls, and from where.

[0] https://www.donotcall.gov

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#48

Post by elliekelly »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #5
elliekelly wrote: post #2

This annoyance is three-fold when a call from your iPhone also takes over your iPad screen and rings on your MacBook.

I turned off the feature that shows calls on my MacBook because of this. It's nice that the UI shows "Scam Likely" as the caller, but maybe give me an option to filter out those calls entirely? Let them go to voicemail or something... who is answering the phone when the caller is unknown and identified by the UI as "Scam Likely"?

Yes! I would even go so far as to say if the caller isn't in my phonebook let them go to voicemail. Or at least give me the option in settings. If I don't know who's calling they're getting my voicemail 100% of the time.

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#49

Post by tefferon »

ianlevesque wrote: post #35
nyjah wrote: post #28

Tapping Decline is not a great option because it actually tells the robocaller that you’re with your phone and are annoyed by the call, information I’d rather not give. Call me paranoid, but I take it a step further and absolutely believe whatever cold call company is calling knows when my phone is moving, or I am around it. I am the type of person that doesn't carry their phone all the time, I usually keep it in my…

Yes, you are paranoid.

no, I think OP is on to something here

Re: Apple needs to change iPhone’s call UI because robocalls are killing us

#50

Post by traek »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #5
elliekelly wrote: post #2

This annoyance is three-fold when a call from your iPhone also takes over your iPad screen and rings on your MacBook.

I turned off the feature that shows calls on my MacBook because of this. It's nice that the UI shows "Scam Likely" as the caller, but maybe give me an option to filter out those calls entirely? Let them go to voicemail or something... who is answering the phone when the caller is unknown and identified by the UI as "Scam Likely"?

That's a T-Mobile feature, not an Apple feature, and you can change your settings to block the calls instead of just ID'ing them.

https://www.t-mobile.com/resources/call-protection

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