This upcoming iOS feature will make spam phone calls an issue of the past

At WWDC25 this year, Apple announced a pair of new features to vastly improve the phone calling experience for iPhone users. Hold Assist does exactly what it says on the tin, and manages calls for you while you’re placed on hold – getting rid of the need to listen to dreaded hold music.

The other feature, Call Screening, has much larger implications, and dealing with spam phone calls may become an issue of the past.

With iOS 26, launching this fall, all iPhone users will have a huge new feature: Call Screening. When an unknown phone call arises, your iPhone will no longer ring to you directly.

Instead, your iPhone will answer the call for you, and ask the caller for their name and reasoning. Ideally, this would deter a large number of spam phone callers, largely as the result of data brokers selling your information, and it’ll definitely reduce the number of times your phone interrupts you midday.

Robocalls have increasingly become a problem in recent years. Americans receive an average 3.3 billion spam phone calls every month, according to data from Truecaller. While the number of calls has been decreasing in recent months, it’ll certainly be nice to have your iPhone handle the process for you.

In similar vein, iOS 26 will also introduce a new screening filter for texts, completely hiding them from your conversations list, and rather placing them in a separate menu.

What do you think about Apple’s latest iOS 26 features? Are you excited to install it on your phone? Let us know in the comments.

My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:

Follow Michael: X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram