[vampirical]

I’ll second what my sibling poster said but also…

From my perspective iOS already has pretty good call/text blocking. Are you sure you know all the existing features?

For calling, there’s a built-in contacts only mode behind a single opt-in switch, this is what I use. There’s also a privacy preserving app system that allows you to install third party apps which provide block lists and labeling to the phone app.

Messages is similar, except with unknowns being put in a separate list and an older and simpler static block list, though it does also support reporting the message as junk which presumably means all iOS devices have a bit of a shared message spam filter.

[matsemann]

People want to be called from unknown numbers from time to time. A pizza delivery being outside, my doctor with test results etc. Blocking everyone but contacts is in the realm of "you're holding it wrong" kinda excuse.

Messages going to a different list helps little when iMessage is full of 0-day exploits that happen as soon as your phone receive the message.

[xlii]

There is a support for a third party blocking list which can both hint and block marketers etc (At least for phone calls not sure if it works with texts).

It’s not a well known nor heavily advertised feature - I learned about it from carrier commercial who provides app of their own.

[avtar]

> From my perspective iOS already has pretty good call/text blocking. Are you sure you know all the existing features?

For context I'm comparing what's in place in iOS with what Android has had for at least a couple releases. With that familiarity, iOS's anti-spam features appear rudimentary at best.

> For calling, there’s a built-in contacts only mode behind a single opt-in switch

Contacts-only incoming calls and texts is a clunky design. Businesses (doctors offices, delivery services come to mind) frequently use random 1-800 numbers for their outgoing calls. Having those _and_ spam clutter up one's voicemail is far from ideal; the expectation is that the user will spend their time going through voicemail and delete spam. Live voicemail is definitely an improvement but even if I choose to block an incoming spam call, the voicemail is still left on my phone. Android lets one end the call as soon as spam is detected and there's no action needed after the fact.

> There’s also a privacy preserving app system that allows you to install third party apps which provide block lists and labeling to the phone app.

This is what I was referring to in my original post. On Android suspected spam calls and texts are labelled as such by default. Why does Apple expect users to install third party apps for this? It should at least be an opt-in feature that ships as part of iOS.

[jwalton]

My carrier charges too much for voicemail, so if I block these calls they just go to the void.

[eloisius]

The problem I have with these is that unknown but wanted senders get squelched with the spam. I get MFA tokens via SMS from assorted random numbers, or worse calls from them (looking at you Citibank).

[rTX5CMRXIfFG]

That’s why the category is called “unknown” and not “unwanted”. There’s no way to know in advance whether a sender is wanted or not, so people should be actively checking that inbox instead.

[eloisius]

Hence the complaints that Apple isn’t doing enough. It’s technically possible to know ahead of time if an SMS or call comes from a fraud operation or from an MFA number. Personally I don’t know if the phone is the right place to handle that. Seems like a carrier problem. But, other people in this thread are saying Android has better capabilities of filtering this abuse, so Apple ought to keep up.

[moooo99]

Is this feature globally available? Because I receive an embarrassing amount of spam calls and never had a single of them blocked. The same goes for SMS.