- iOS 26 introduces a new feature called Call Screening
- It helps filter spam calls and insignificant calls
- I have found it useful – and then have lots of other users
Spam calls can be a huge problem for many of us, and I get my reasonable proportion of random calls from marketers and scammers during the day – not ideal when trying to be productive. With call screening in iOS 26, however, I think I have finally found the correction.
As you might guess from the name, call screening puts an automated voice between you and unknown callers: the person (or robot) at the other end of the line asks them to indicate their business and their response is then presented as a text transcription to you. You can then decide whether to take the call or not.
It does not kick in action for known contacts and you can activate or disable the feature whenever you want. Personally, I want to keep it turned on – it will save me a lot of time talking in meaningless conversations.
To activate Call Screening in iOS 26
Any phone that supports iOS 26 also supports call screening: You don’t need any additional Apple Intelligence Smarts or something similar. You can download and install the mobile operating system update on the phones launched in September 2019 – iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max – and something newer than that.
After installing iOS 26, you may be able to see a quick to activate call screening when the first unknown call comes in. Otherwise, you can turn on or off or turn off iOS settings and then tap Apps> Phone.
Under the screen unknown callers headline you have three options: Never (Calls from unknown numbers are treated as normal), Ask reason to call (which is a call screening) and Silence (Calls from unknown numbers are silenced and sent directly to voicemail). Select Ask reason to call And you’re good at going.
How Call Screening Works in iOS 26
With call screening enabled you get a quiet alarm when a call is handled, then a ping is a message. You can press through the message to view the message and then you have a few seconds to either accept or reject the call based on the text transcript on the screen. It’s a bit like a slightly upgraded, live version of Voicemail.
For the one who calls, they get an automated message asking for their name and reason to call. After leaving the message, they are then asked to keep the line for a few seconds while your digital assistant checks if you are available. If you do not respond in time or reject the call, the one who rings has the chance to leave another message. Again, it’s very voicemail-like.
And it’s not just me who is a fan of the feature. The early answers online have mostly been positive, although there are occasional problems with people missing important calls. Improvements that are requested – as I would second – include more obvious alarms for both callers and recipients who call screening are active, but it is already working very well.
