Apple launches fight against spam calls: what will change for iPhone owners.

According to Vox: For the past few years, I haven't answered calls. Only family or work calls that I expect grab my attention. All others automatically go to voicemail, where the iPhone program records messages that are almost always either robocalls or spam. The situation with text messages is even more complicated — it’s a real mess.

Changes in iOS 26

Apple promises to make our lives easier with new features in iOS 26. You may not have noticed them yet, even if you updated your iPhone, as the most ambitious feature that uses artificial intelligence to filter calls is initially turned off. There’s also a new option that automatically filters spam messages, but it can be a bit confusing.

Approximately 80% of Americans, like me, do not answer calls from unknown numbers, according to a Pew survey from 2020. This number has likely increased, especially given the surge in fraud during the pandemic. According to Robokiller, Americans received 19.2 billion spam messages in August, averaging around 63 messages per person. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that Americans lose $470 billion a year due to text message-related fraud.

Who is to blame for this situation? Responsibility is shared among telecom providers, regulators, and technology companies, and the problem is only getting worse.

“This needs to be a collective, societal solution because this is such a terrible problem in this country that has been going on for years,” said Teresa Murray, a consumer advocate with the US PIRG Education Fund.

Call Security with iPhone

Apple’s new features can both ease and complicate the situation. After activating the new call filtering options on the iPhone, unknown callers are faced with Siri, who asks for their name and reason for the call before your phone rings. Their response is transcribed in real-time, and you receive a notification. If you ignore the call, it goes to voicemail.

The situation around identification is so complicated that even the Federal Communications Commission advises not to answer calls from unknown numbers. If you do choose to pick up, there’s a chance it’s a scammer using artificial intelligence to mimic the voice of someone close to you.

While the new call filtering feature on the iPhone protects against some threats, it doesn’t solve all problems. Scammers’ systems are constantly evolving.

Spam Messages

Regarding annoying text messages, the situation is even more complex. While blocking spam in texts may seem like a straightforward task, the messaging infrastructure is fundamentally different from email. However, Apple is attempting to tackle this challenge with new filtering options in iOS 26.

New spam-filtering features in iOS 26 offer ways to manage unwanted text messages, including an option for automatic spam filtering and sorting messages into different folders.

Each of these filters aims to reduce the flow of spam to the main inbox, but by implementing all these filters, you might accidentally miss important messages.

While tech companies offer new solutions to address these issues, it’s still not enough to fully resolve the spam problem.

This version of the story was also published in the User Friendly newsletter.

So, despite new technologies, the spam problem remains relevant. The measures that Apple proposes in the latest version of iOS have the potential to improve the situation, but their effectiveness is not enough to fundamentally change the landscape of calls and text messages. It’s important for all market participants to collaborate in solving this complex problem.