New iOS 13 feature uses Siri smarts to thwart spam calls
Apple is looking to combat pesky spam callers in iOS 13 with a new Siri-powered feature that weeds out and silences calls from unknown numbers, sending them directly to voicemail.
Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi onstage at WWDC 2019.
Word of the optional setting is secreted away deep within Apple's iOS 13 feature preview webpage, published after the company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday.
Aptly named "Silence unknown callers," the feature protects users from spammers, an increasing nuisance to cellphone owners in the U.S. and beyond. A bane for many, spam callers are utilizing increasingly complex methods like number spoofing and automated services to bypass third-party screening tools and trick users into answering.
Apple's solution does not eliminate the annoying calls, but it does offer users some respite.
When enabled, Silence unknown callers "uses Siri intelligence to allow calls to ring your phone from numbers in Contacts, Mail, and Messages," Apple says. Calls from numbers not recognized by Siri are automatically routed to voicemail.
While the brief description fails to detail the feature's mechanics, it is believed that calls from strangers will not prompt an audio alert or trigger a haptic event, allowing users to review voicemails -- and voicemail transcripts -- at their leisure. The calls are also unlikely to result in an onscreen notification beyond receipt of a voicemail, if one is recorded.
The feature might not be workable for some iPhone owners as it effectively puts a blanket ban on calls from strangers. For users afflicted by serial spam calls, however, the concession might be worth the peace and quiet.
Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi onstage at WWDC 2019.
Word of the optional setting is secreted away deep within Apple's iOS 13 feature preview webpage, published after the company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday.
Aptly named "Silence unknown callers," the feature protects users from spammers, an increasing nuisance to cellphone owners in the U.S. and beyond. A bane for many, spam callers are utilizing increasingly complex methods like number spoofing and automated services to bypass third-party screening tools and trick users into answering.
Apple's solution does not eliminate the annoying calls, but it does offer users some respite.
When enabled, Silence unknown callers "uses Siri intelligence to allow calls to ring your phone from numbers in Contacts, Mail, and Messages," Apple says. Calls from numbers not recognized by Siri are automatically routed to voicemail.
While the brief description fails to detail the feature's mechanics, it is believed that calls from strangers will not prompt an audio alert or trigger a haptic event, allowing users to review voicemails -- and voicemail transcripts -- at their leisure. The calls are also unlikely to result in an onscreen notification beyond receipt of a voicemail, if one is recorded.
The feature might not be workable for some iPhone owners as it effectively puts a blanket ban on calls from strangers. For users afflicted by serial spam calls, however, the concession might be worth the peace and quiet.
Comments
When enabled, Silence unknown callers "uses Siri intelligence to allow calls to ring your phone from numbers in Contacts, Mail, and Messages.”
This new feature likely takes that existing iOS 12 capability and provides it with the skill to automatically reject unfamiliar numbers/facetimes. There is an expectation that the feature does a little more to thwart spam calls, since Apple would be able to gather a statistical model of spoofed phone numbers.
In the same same way that Siri makes recommendations about appointments, new contacts, reminds you to call people back, etc. Siri is used to reference the incoming number across numerous possible prior contacts through which you might have had an interaction with the callers such as:
- You may have exchanged a few emails with them a while ago, but did not add their details, to your contacts database
- You may have called the number a few times recently, but did not add the number to your contacts
- The caller’s number range may be within your corporate PBX number range making it likely to be business related.
- Etc.
More importantly, how you respond to numbers found in bills, marketing brochures, discount coupons, travel itineraries hotel, car hire and airline booking, etc. that Siri may find in your inbox, notes, documents, spreadsheets, etc. is different to how the next person would... So some ML to help the AI figure out what works for you and may work differently for me is important.Otherwise it will simply be a dumb mechanical reference lookup that treats every unknown call in exactly the same way for everybody. That may be good enough for you, but it is going to be quickly disabled when it starts screening out important calls from patients, investment brokers, journalists, work colleagues, clients. etc.
There's already a solution very similar to what you're advocating.
And it all happens on device preserving privacy.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/google-call-screening-how-to-use/
Seriously though, the variety of ways in which phone numbers can be represented in text and email can be a challenge for automated systems. I don't think it's a stretch to claim "AI" is at work to find them. Simple AI perhaps, but AI nonetheless.
1. everyone loves captcha - legitimate callers would be rightly annoyed.
2. Stop talking about your billionaire idea and just do it already.
The Siri solution is exactly what I've been looking for... If I know the contact, let them through. If I don't, straight to voicemail. Hopefully I can tell the system to ONLY look at my contacts. The step beyond that is adding spam features to the speech-to-text that is part of voicemail. If the message matches some database, auto-delete the voicemail.
1)Send calls from "Unknown" to voicemail
2)Block calls from "No Caller ID"
3)Support wildcards in number blocking (eg: allow me to block all the spam calls spoofing my area code and next three digits)
That #3 is the worst. Every day I get at least 5 calls from (214)555-xxxx type spammers
1) go to ringtone store and buy a silent ringtone for $1.29
2) set that silent ringtone as your default. Now when someone calls your phone it won’t ring.
3) open each of your contacts (at least, the ones you like) and change their ringtone to a real ringtone. I had less than 100 contacts, so it didn’t take too long.
Yes, some spammers will leave a voicemail, but you can delete and/or listen on your schedule, not theirs.
These smarts are AI. Merely looking up a list is not AI, that's a straight forward database query, did you think Apple were just now introducing a feature that has been around since the invention of caller-id?
As I've (and many others) have already noted, it's not limited to phone numbers, and has been significantly improved over the years since the original concept of "data detectors".