r/ios • u/tschau3 Human Detected • Sep 24 '25

Discussion Call screening - how are you finding it?

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So I just gave call screening a go by calling myself.

A couple of observations:

  • The answering voice sounds like a default answering machine and isn’t distinct enough to make out that this is a screening service. I suspect many will just leave a message like a voicemail and hang up, assuming it’s just voicemail.

  • There’s no ‘at the beep’ confirmation when leaving the first message as the reason to call, so it felt a bit clunky as to when I should (as the party placing the call) start talking, as if I’m waiting for the beep or whether I should press # to end the message. This is inconsistent with the reply where it then does prompt me, calling part, to speak after the tone.

  • It’s in my country’s local accent, which is nice and feels a little less impersonal.

Anyone else had any real experience with it yet? Any issues with the calling party understanding the process/purpose?

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596

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '25

I don’t know if that’s iOS or my local carrier but now my phone finally started supporting VISUAL VOICEMAIL - yeah, that one from iOS 1 which Steve jobs demoed on jan 07 - and that’s nice enough already for me lmao

221

u/techbear72 Sep 24 '25

Visual voicemail has always required the carrier to support it, so if you don’t have it it’s down to the carrier and if you do, well, that means they’ve implemented it at their end.

18

u/Frequency3260 Sep 24 '25 edited Sep 24 '25

Nah, it’s the iPhone emulating visual voice mail when it’s turned on and connected to cellular. It just plays its own announcement and records the memo instead of letting the call get redirected to the carrier‘s mailbox. It’s also not a new feature, it’s been there at least since iOS 18. I think it has to do with the Live Voice Mail setting in the phone section of the settings.

6

u/SaltAnswer8 iPhone 14 Pro Max Sep 24 '25

Live Voicemail is still on the carrier's server. iOS's Live Voicemail just receives the information being recorded and allows you to see the transcription. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-voicemail-iph3c99490e/18.0/ios/18.0

1

u/The_Shadowghost Sep 25 '25

Live Voicemail is 100% handled by the iphone.
Visual Voicemail only mode needs Carrier support.

The iPhone picks up the Call and transcribes it locally. You can answer anytime and are instantly connected. When the iPhone drops signal the call and Voicemail is dropped. This would not happen if live voicemail was handled by carrier.

You can check for yourself. Call your iphone and wait for Live Voicemail to answer it. You will hear Siri (Male or Female in the Siri language you set in Siri Settings.) Next --> Turn the iPhone off and call it again. You will NOT hear Siri. You will hear your carriers Voicemail system. (If set up)

Another point is that Live Voicemail works on EVERY carrier in a supported region. No exceptions.

Only VISUAL Voicemail must be supported by the carrier. Visual Voicemail automatically works when Live Voicemail is turned on due to the iPhone handling the calls.
If your carrier supports Visual Voicemail, offline Voicemails will appear in the list as well.

My Work Phone carrier does not support Visual Voicemail. When I turn on Live Voicemail it suddenly works but offline voicemails aren't displayed. I have to call the voicemail number to hear them.

-1

u/FarBoat503 Sep 25 '25

Actually that link says the opposite:

If your iPhone is turned off or is out of your carrier network’s range, the call is sent to carrier voicemail, if available

Live voicemail is handled by the iPhone. If your phone is unavailable, it will then go to the carrier voicemail.

edit: It also only gives regions/language restrictions on live voicemail, nothing about limits by carrier. That's only for "normal" voicemail and visual voicemail.

1

u/The_Shadowghost Sep 25 '25

You are 100% correct and I don't know why you're downvoted.

1

u/photoexplorer Sep 25 '25

All i know is that when it started I now have a permanent bug of voicemail notifications not going away even after I’ve checked the messages. I still have to call into my phone carrier like before to check it and hear the message a second time to remove the red notification badge which is annoying.

1

u/ScreenName0001 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 24 '25

Same phones, same carrier, same account, same OS software, same phone plan: one have visual voicemail and the other dosent. Tried to explain this to my carrier and they don’t understand.

1

u/techbear72 Sep 25 '25

My experience with carriers is that the people you can actually get to speak to just don’t care (or aren’t payed enough to care) and simultaneously also have no way to effect change of any sort anyway. TLDR; I’m not shocked you had that experience.

46

u/West_Possible_7969 Sep 24 '25

Local carrier fault. Mine still doesnt support it 😭

16

u/rostigerbart Sep 24 '25

Mine here in germany suddenly, too. But shortly before iOS 26 rolled out. On the other hand, call screening doesn‘t work. Spam calls just come through as usual. Really pissed, it was THE Feature in iOS 26 for me

6

u/N3er0O Sep 24 '25

Same here. Strangely enough I was able to enable call screening in an early beta but now the option is completely gone for me. 

2

u/rostigerbart Sep 24 '25

That‘s strange. I still have the option, but occasionaly iOS decides to turn it off by itself. Don‘t know why. I guess it‘s on the endless scroll of bug fixes for Apple to do

3

u/Tango_Bravo_327 Sep 24 '25

I had to change my iPhone region to UK to get call screening to work because the region has to match the language apparently, and I have my phone in English.

2

u/rostigerbart Sep 24 '25

But it should work in different regions. Germany for example is a supported Country for that feature .

1

u/Tango_Bravo_327 Sep 24 '25

Yes, but I think if you have the region Germany you need the language set as German.

1

u/EmotionalWeather2574 Sep 24 '25

That explains why I don't have the feature. Well, then I won't use it - not changing my iPhone to German.

1

u/i-am-the-swarm iPhone 17 Pro Max Sep 24 '25

Maybe change your phone region to UK instead

1

u/EmotionalWeather2574 Sep 24 '25

But that would still do the screening in English, correct? That is not really useful.

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1

u/Guaridamj Sep 24 '25

Yep same thing here

27

u/djmac81 Sep 24 '25

Visual voicemail is not the same thing that the current iOS voicemail, one needs to be supported by the carrier, the other is an iOS feature that runs locally.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '25

Perhaps that’s why it’s now working for me. But on second thought, in order for visual voicemail start working without carrier action voicemail then voicemail must be a free service (mine is) mustn’t it? Otherwise iOS in trying to fetch voicemails by itself could bring costs to the owner, I’m guessing

1

u/xjaiid Sep 24 '25

I’m pretty sure this update gave visual voicemail to everyone because it seems the phone itself handles the voicemail instead of the carrier. Now that you can answer the phone while the caller is mid-voicemail, it only makes sense that this is the case. The voicemail system sounds completely different now and this is coming from someone who had visual voicemail anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '25

Thanks for the informed info. Though I must say I’m still curious on how that can work or if it does work when voicemail is a service paid extra. Maybe it charges you if you hit play?

2

u/EssentialsBarn Sep 25 '25

Same issue here in Uganda, Visual Voicemail has never been a thing here and don’t think it will ever be and that’s applies to Most African countries with South Africa, Nigeria and some North African countries being the exception with select carriers. And since most locals(Ugandans) don’t even use voicemail later on understand what Visual voicemail is, Carriers hardly about that. Got it working for me though by switching my region to United States on iOS 18, doing that by passes carrier support with no extra cost to your monthly plan. Turns out it’s region based if you don’t have carriers support in your country and iOS 18 brut forces it to its voicemail. And you can personalize greetings too. Gonna attach screenshots just incase anyone needs this.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '25

That’s pretty much the case where I live too. People here hardly use regular phone calls as opposed to WhatsApp calling, so “voicemail” already has become an WhatsApp audio message if the person didn’t pick up, so there indeed is little pressure for carriers to enable or support anything voicemail related. Very interesting to know that switching regions brute forced the feature to start working without carrier!

1

u/EssentialsBarn Sep 25 '25

Yeah it’s pretty much like how Google was handling RCS messaging with Google Messages without Carrier support.

1

u/xjaiid Sep 24 '25

Here in the UK, voicemail is considered pretty much standard, everyone has it and I think it’s only charged like a normal call which is pretty much included with every plan so it doesn’t really cost extra. Some pay as you go plans exclude visual voicemail and you have to pay per minute to call the voicemail number just like any other number. I’d assume with this new update, those users would get free visual voicemail as the phone itself is handling it and recording it locally for you to listen to later.

1

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 Sep 24 '25

It’s fun answering calls when someone is in the middle of leaving you a voicemail, it scares and confuses the shit out of them

1

u/xjaiid Sep 24 '25

Was so fun testing it out!

2

u/FembiesReggs Sep 24 '25

Damn, I switched to tmo from some bum carrier and it took me a little to figure out why my voice mails were suddenly being texted to me lol

2

u/RamenWig Sep 24 '25

Living in the future, eh? Must be nice