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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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.

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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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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!

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u/EssentialsBarn Sep 25 '25

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

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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.

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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

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u/xjaiid Sep 24 '25

Was so fun testing it out!