Call Screening Is the Best Reason to Update to iOS 26 ⇥ businessinsider.com
Call Screening automatically answers calls from unknown numbers without interrupting you. Once the caller shares their name and reason for their call, your iPhone rings and shares their response so you can decide if you want to pick up. You can also choose to silence calls from unknown callers and send them directly to voicemail.
I understand being reluctant to update to iOS 26, but if you are as irritated by spam calls throughout your day as I am, this feature is a compelling reason to make the leap. I have had it switched on since the first iOS 26 beta releases and, while I still receive spam calls, virtually none of them have actually notified me.
If you frequently get calls from numbers you are not saving to your contacts, this is probably not a feature for you. It is also something you have to remember to turn off in instances where you might get calls from an unknown number. I have forgotten to do so before and then I need to rush to answer the phone. But I do not live the life of a publicist or celebrity lawyer, and the main reason I get phone calls to my personal number is because someone is trying to defraud me, and I would rather not speak to them.
Katie Notopoulos, of Business Insider, does not like this feature:
Sure, you say, most of those unknown calls are junk. Well, not exactly — there’s already a spam filter that’s separate from unknown callers. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but I find it’s pretty accurate in assessing “spam risk.” (Android users here will probably laugh, since they’ve had this feature for a long time.)
This feature — unknown call screening — is for non-spam unknown callers — a doctor’s office, your kid’s school, a friend with a new number, someone from work whose number you don’t have saved yet. Sure, some of these may be annoyances that you don’t actually want to deal with (I don’t want to “deal” with my dentist reminding me of my appointment, but that’s life). Still, having a phone number where people who need to reach you can reach you is the point of the phone.
The separate spam filtering feature appears to be carrier-specific; it is not an option available to me.
I am not someone who is opposed to phone calls in general; I do not usually mind answering them even when I am doing something else. However, one of the things Notopoulos’ article omits is how the reception of the cold phone call changed as cell phones became the norm. The fact that someone can call me anywhere does not mean I wish to be reached everywhere I happen to be carrying the device that is, among many other things, a phone.
Notopoulos is nostalgic for “having a clever outgoing answering machine message” and seems to be fine with voicemail, so the principle of deciding whether to answer the phone does not seem to be a problem. But having a middle layer that gives the recipient more information is, apparently, a step too far, for reasons I do not understand. Nothing about this prevents making or receiving phone calls. It just means I get to decide whether I want to interact with criminals.