E.g. if your number is (555)555-1234 it'll block anything from (555)555-0000 to (555)555-9999.
Now that number is 0%.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/begone-call-blocker/id15968181...
...though the creator of Begone will hopefully realize that every entry in its version-history starting with that same rant about fake ad campaigns is making it look more sketchy than ignoring the issue would.
Settings > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification
555-555-1234
All the 5s match my number, which hasn’t happened since I used to live in a small town. That always makes me do a double check but it’s also easier to ignore.
But then you mess up callbacks.
the ONLY calls that call me from that area code are spammers. if I get calls from any other area code, only 20% or so are spammers. Others are sales/marketing for IT companies, etc, and calls from one of the 2 area codes that cover my area where I actually live are usually all local businesses, etc. If I had to guess, I would say 85-90% of the 'spam callers' call and spoof the 920 area code when they dial me. that drastically cuts down on my automated messages about a car warranty that is about to expire.
You're misunderstanding them too, I suspect. One could equally assume that a call coming from an area code they've never been to, 5 states away is spam - so this trick works if you do not make a lot of calls.
Not equally. I have an area code from the opposite coast. If I get a call from that area code, it is 100% spam. Spammers just love outing themselves by spoofing the same area code of the person they are calling.
A call from any other area code is only 30% chance of being spam.
Nobody will care. Everybody's cell number is just a record of where they lived when they got their first phone; people you call will have you in their contact list most likely.
I assume they do this to muddy the block lists that get used to filter their calls.
I know this because every now and then I will get up to 5 or so calls or texts of people claiming I called them.
In the age where most phones are mobile, this whole "scheme" is pitifully ignorant.
Also, A/B testing is not just for good guys.
Huh.
Last month I had a flurry of spam texts and calls. I moved the slider to the "enable" side a few weeks ago and have had zero issues since.
The feature mostly works, but needing to remember to disable it when a call is expected is annoying.
I missed a hospital calling about a family member. They should have left a voicemail, but they didn't.
1) You have a kid AND 2) You're not currently looking right at that kid
Then you need to pick up calls from random numbers basically every time. Just the way life is.
It’s a simple read and worth the minute or so if you use the feature.
In other words, they would not have had any meaningful time getting accustomed to iOS from Android, which is why they used the strategy of getting an iPhone 13 spend 2 weeks or more with it, in the hopes that if they like the experience, they'd return it for the newer iPhone 14 Pro.
But where there are no strong privacy laws like india, truecaller is straight up spyware
https://restofworld.org/2022/how-truecaller-built-a-billion-...
And at least as of a few years ago, Truecaller would upload a copy of your phonebook to their servers. That's how they bootstrapped their database - from user's addressbooks. I only ever used it on a burner with an empty phone book, and occasionally get Truecaller pearls like "Annoying John - do not answer" as the caller's name.
Just make it a contact with like a 7 day TTL or something. If it’s longer term, save it proper.
I mention this because the old Caller ID setup doesn’t really work any more.
It's my understanding that this is largely because of the carriers.
Phone and text spam filtering came to the iPhone in China long before it hit other countries. I only know a couple of people in China, and neither are in tech, but they say it's because spam was absolutely rampant so the government leaned on the carriers to fix it, and the iPhone spam filtering appeared a short time later.
There's no shortage of Chinese users on HN, so maybe one of them can explain further, or refute what I've been told.
Frankly this kind of comment has no place on Hacker News.
There are many, many reasons to be critical of Apple. "Doesn't compete on features and only cares about what the device looks like superficially because their customers are sheep who only care about status" is not only a lazy take, but also doesn't even remotely describe the reality in which we live.
> I don't see what is wrong with calling out a very rational decision to continue making high status products rather than deviate into high tech products.
I genuinely can't fathom how one could conclude that Apple as a company isn't investing in technology. I mean, even at a superficial level, you're talking about a company that in-houses their own chip design and has dominated the mobile CPU market since doing so. They're very competitive in the desktop space in compute power with their very first chip line in this product category, and are absolutely crushing the existing players on performance per watt.
The've leveraged this advantage into being effectively the only meaningful player in the wearables space other than Garmin. Satellite integration into the phone is a direct shot across the bow of devices like the Garmin inReach, and the greater battery life (plus satellite integration) in the Apple Watch Max is going to start eating away at a chunk of Garmin's marketshare for GPS-tracking watches. Though Garmin still wins here for serious backcountry enthusiasts who spend multiple days in a row out of reach, Apple is leaving them a smaller and smaller margin in which to operate.
I stand by my original comment that this characterization of Apple is not reflective about of our reality. For Apple's many faults, they are extremely competitive from a technological perspective. Precisely because they are so unbelievably good at identifying how and when to apply a technological advance to achieve the largest possible impact for their customers.