Switched from Android: What's the best call spam blocker?

[phositadc]

I'm one of the many who recently switched from Android to iPhone. The biggest thing I miss at the moment is decent call spam blocking. I've read about iPhone apps like RoboKiller and NomoRobo that identify and block spam calls.

Do these apps actually work reasonably well? Is there one app that is widely considered to be the best?

Thanks.

 

[ant the ninja]

iPhones now have a “silence all unknown calls” feature that essentially sends all calls from numbers that aren’t stored in your phone, straight to voicemail.

Settings - Phone - Silence Unknown Callers

 

[phositadc]

iPhones now have a “silence all unknown calls” feature that essentially sends all calls from numbers that aren’t stored in your phone, straight to voicemail.

Nice, that's a good feature. I view that as a bit of a last resort though. Would prefer to have some sort of advanced spam detection that automatically sends suspected spam calls to voice mail but lets other calls through, even if they are not in my contact list.

 

[jdlindsey7]

Interested in this also. I haven’t found anything on the iPhone that comes close to Google Pixel’s Call Screen feature yet. I wish Google would find a way to make that available for the iPhone. I would pay a subscription fee for that feature!

 

[bmac4]

I tried the silence unknown callers, but I can’t do that. My wife works at a hospital and she may call me from the hospital with an unknown number. Also I have been looking for jobs, so I need to be open to answers calls. I think this is a poor idea for how to handle spam calls. Apple needs some kind of tech like Google has.

 

[LongWayHome]

I tried the silence unknown callers, but I can’t do that. My wife works at a hospital and she may call me from the hospital with an unknown number. Also I have been looking for jobs, so I need to be open to answers calls. I think this is a poor idea for how to handle spam calls. Apple needs some kind of tech like Google has.

Yeah this has never been a good implementation of this and is honestly a complete waste. Why would anyone want to block every single number that they don't have in their contacts? It was a poorly conceived idea from Apple and needs to be overhauled for it to be remotely effective.

 

[bmac4]

Yeah this has never been a good implementation of this and is honestly a complete waste. Why would anyone want to block every single number that they don't have in their contacts? It was a poorly conceived idea from Apple and needs to be overhauled for it to be remotely effective.

Agree! That just seemed like a simple fix for them. Like you said, I can’t imagine anyone wants every single unknown call blocked. Emergencies do happen.

 

[dk001]

Depends on how strict you are looking for.
I use Hiya (Premium) to control what comes through and it works fairly well.
I use it on both my devices, Razer (Android) and 11 ProMax (iOS).

 

[pbonitati]

First off, welcome to MacRumors. This is one thing I feel was better on Android but it's a drop in the bucket compared to all the good you get by coming over. You can't beat Google's implementation of call screen and assistant call controls. I myself use the silence unknown callers and it's like using a samurai sword to kill an ant but it works for me. If the unknown caller is able to resolve and have a name in caller ID it will ring, I thought it was contact based but that doesn't seem to be the case. So if your wife calls from different work numbers all the time but it resolves to the hospital name it may ring for you.

 

[jettie1767]

Carriers have call blockers for free. For Verizon, it's called Call Filter. Works well for me.

 

[e46m3gtr]

Truecaller is pretty good.

 

[slooksterPSV]

I can second TrueCaller. It works but don’t expect a 100% success rate.

 

[phositadc]

Do the apps like TrueCaller and RoboKiller ALWAYS take over your voice mail? I've been reading that they use conditional call forwarding, which concerns me a little bit. I'd prefer to have something that has an advanced, always updating database that can simply silence the suspect spam call and let it go to my voice mail, rather than having the app redirect the call to their own servers... (as RoboKiller apparently does).

 

[chabig]

Do the apps like TrueCaller and RoboKiller ALWAYS take over your voice mail?

Robokiller does. That’s why I stopped using it.

 

[tekchic]

I looked at a lot of them but got tired of the subscription fees for everything. Right now I'm using Call Filter (not Plus) from Verizon and the free version of "Call Protect" which allows me to block a range of numbers. I only started using these when I was getting targeted for hours with a range of spam numbers calling me every 5 minutes on the dot and filling up my voicemail as well.

Prior to that I only had silence unknown callers, but the repeated spam calling every 5 minutes that was filling up my VM was the final straw. Call Protect let me block some wide ranges of numbers and that finally stopped it.

 

[triangletechie]

I've used Robokiller for a couple of years and love it. Their answer bots to spam calls are hilarious.

 

[aka777]

I'm one of the many who recently switched from Android to iPhone. The biggest thing I miss at the moment is decent call spam blocking. I've read about iPhone apps like RoboKiller and NomoRobo that identify and block spam calls.

Do these apps actually work reasonably well? Is there one app that is widely considered to be the best?

Thanks.

All the major carriers in the US offer a network-level call blocking solution. Just install their apps.

 

[C DM]

iPhones now have a “silence all unknown calls” feature that essentially sends all calls from numbers that aren’t stored in your phone, straight to voicemail.

Settings - Phone - Silence Unknown Callers

If only they had something like that for messaging that works in a similar way.

 

[dk001]

If only they had something like that for messaging that works in a similar way.

That would be a great feature.
I have tried a couple of apps but have yet to find one that really works.
I have tried setting Filter Unk Senders but ....

 

[bmac4]

First off, welcome to MacRumors. This is one thing I feel was better on Android but it's a drop in the bucket compared to all the good you get by coming over. You can't beat Google's implementation of call screen and assistant call controls. I myself use the silence unknown callers and it's like using a samurai sword to kill an ant but it works for me. If the unknown caller is able to resolve and have a name in caller ID it will ring, I thought it was contact based but that doesn't seem to be the case. So if your wife calls from different work numbers all the time but it resolves to the hospital name it may ring for you.

Interesting, I didn’t know that, but this could just be a once in a couple of months thing.

 

[RRC]

The option in iOS to block numbers and ignore unknown callers works well.

 

[C DM]

That would be a great feature.
I have tried a couple of apps but have yet to find one that really works.
I have tried setting Filter Unk Senders but ....

Yeah, the filter seems to filter messages fro unknown senders but doesn't actually silence notifications from those messages, which is a little odd as that works differently for calls (and even differently from what that option worked like for messages prior to iOS 14 where it was expanded to apply to regular text messages in addition to iMessages).

 

[archer75]

The carriers have thier own apps to do this. I use tmobiles.

 

[Pooneil]

If only they had something like that for messaging that works in a similar way.

I use Textkiller. Pricey but about 90% effective

 

[lostPod]

I use Hiya and Verizon's Call Filter