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New iPhone Feature Can Send Unknown Callers To Voicemail Automatically (economist.com) 104

Posted by EditorDavid from the not-talking-to-strangers dept.
An anonymous reader quotes the Economist: In its latest software release, Apple has made it possible for iPhone users to send all unknown callers to voicemail automatically.

Although the feature will no doubt prove useful to the millions of customers whose peaceful suppers are ruined by fake calls, it could be disastrous for the faltering public-polling industry. The challenges telephone pollsters face have been growing. Polling by phone has become very expensive, as the number of Americans willing to respond to unexpected or unknown callers has dropped.

Back in the mid-to-late-20th century response rates were as high as 70%, according to SSRS, a market research and polling firm. But the Pew Research Centre estimates that it received completed interviews from a mere 6% of the people it tried to survey in 2018. Although polls with low response rates can still be accurate, their costs increase dramatically as pollsters must spend more time and money calling more people.
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New iPhone Feature Can Send Unknown Callers To Voicemail Automatically More

New iPhone Feature Can Send Unknown Callers To Voicemail Automatically

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  • CAPTCHA: Are You Calling Me To Give Me Money? Caller: Er, No? CAPTCHA: Off To Voicemail With You!

  • Hang on (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @12:46PM (#59247068)

    While I try to find my give a shit for the fucking pollsters

  • Thanks for the reminder! (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @12:48PM (#59247076)

    I forgot they were adding that feature. I just now turned it on.

    Settings -> Phone -> Silence Unknown Callers

    I think I’ll also create a once-a-day reminder to scan my recent calls list so I don’t miss anything important - at least until I see how this works out, practically speaking.

  • I already saw this here, days ago.

  • it could be disastrous for the faltering public-polling industry

    Just wait for a New York Times editorial [slashdot.org] calling for government taking over any such polling — with phone-makers required to consider their numbers "known". Problem solved!

    Seriously, are we going to hold up technological advancements for the bullshit reasons like this? How did our Republic thrive before the phones were even invented?

    • I would not be surprised if these polling people sue Apple for this.

      I thinks it's weird that nobody demanded whitelisting since the beginning. I guess they'll buy anything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        it's weird that nobody demanded whitelisting since the beginning

        Had they, it would've been for a very few numbers, which you'd then blacklist yourself...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by starless ( 60879 )

      We already have government polling - AKA voting...

  • make it a feature of the call/phone app in every phone, to send every call not identified in the user's phone book (contacts) to voice mail, i will gladly use that, i looked at google-playstore and what i found was spammy looking bloated apps, it dont need fancy bells & whistles, just send all calls not coming from a list of known callers to voice mail

    • At this point every call I get is ignored and sent to voicemail unless I know who is calling (and sometimes even if I do). This just makes the process less disruptive.

      I keep wondering who picks up calls from unknown numbers and actually talks to people that justifies this continued practice, but the answer is: old people. To quote one "What if it's an emergency?" "They can leave a panicked message?" "But they need to talk NOW!" "Then they're going to die anyway, are you going to teleport?" etc.

      • People in sales answer calls from unknown numbers all of the time. I know a handful of sales reps I regularly contact who only list their mobile as their contact number. While they probably have my number saved by now, it stands to reason that they would still get a lot of calls from new/unknown callers.

    • Re:that would be a good feature for all phones (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Swave An deBwoner ( 907414 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @01:55PM (#59247258)
      If you set "no ringtone" as the default and some audible ringtone for any number that is in your address book, then you'll have what it sounds like you want.

      No additional app needed; I believe that every phone I've ever owned had that option available.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SpiceWare ( 3438 )
        I did that, works great most of the time, but not when I'm in the car because the car uses its own ringtone. This new option should solve that problem.

    • There is insufficient demand for those kinds of services, which should be a normal feature of any contact list. People have to speak up louder.

    • As far back as Marshmallow that I can remember (2015). Although because most Android handset manufacturers modify the base Android code, it may not be available on your particular handset [ccm.net].

  • In what reality are the problems and challenges of telephone pollsters a concern? The sooner they crash and die the better. Political parties have moved away from actually talking to voters (going door to door for example). Now policies and campaigns are based, in large part, on the shallow foundation of small sample telephone polls asking vague and confusing questions. Now, thanks to the growing number of robot call polls, human contact one end has been eliminated.contact from their end.
    A good plan fo

  • If unknown means a call with no information then this would've been a good feature a few years ago but not now. Nearly all spam calls now have fake caller id info. This is because land lines have had this block unknown calls for a while and spam calls use this to get around it. So, thanks, but too late.

    • If unknown means a call with no information then this would've been a good feature a few years ago but not now.

      In this context, "unknown" means "not in my Contacts list". So it's definitely a useful feature for many people, right now.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Every call is from my mom. Why is she asking me how I feel about a politician?
      • Except for any of the millions of people who get legit calls from Unknown numbers like schools, doctors, women's shelters, etc. The root of the problem is that CID is garbage and any mechanism which uses it is trivial to circumvent. And you've had the ability to block calls not in your address book for over a decade.

        • And you've had the ability to block calls not in your address book for over a decade.

          While true, (at least on the iPhone) that involved enabling "do not disturb" - which has the side effect of silencing calendar alerts, reminders, etc.

        • Next month when Pence takes office I would like to see Calder ID information frozen at the time a new line is provisioned, and not changeable thereafter. This would be a small inconvenience for business, a huge new convenience for consumers.

    • Verbatim from the settings: Calls from unknown numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list. Incoming calls will continue to ring from people in your contacts, recent outgoing calls, and Siri Suggestions. So, an unknown caller, even if they have a preset caller ID, is still an unknown caller because it is not someone you actively contact via phone/email/text/facetime. FYI: Numbers found via Siri suggestions (which you can turn off) are retrieved from Apple native modes o

  • Polling impact (Score:3)

    by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @01:02PM (#59247146)
    The summary mentions the difficulty pollsters are having with increasing numbers of people ignoring unknown callers. While I am generally unsympathetic to pollsters and unknown callers, the new iPhone feature adds a new twist to this that I do find interesting. If the political leanings of iPhone users are different than those of Android users, what impact does this have on polling results? Polling results are already colored by only including people that are willing to accept calls from unknown callers, how will they be further colored by differences in the ways that various phone platforms differently treat unknown callers? One could argue that polls don't matter, but I would say that they do. During the times leading up to elections, people hear things like "Polls say that xxxx person / issue is leading / trailing". If people are for an issue and the issue is already polling positive, people are less likely to turn out to vote then they are when their issue is trailing in the polls.

    • Back in the old days, I heard the claim (likely from liberals) that telephone polling tended to underrepresent liberals because conservative households were more likely to have a stay-at-home wife and therefore more likely to have someone present during the time period pollsters tended to make calls. But I also heard people (likely conservatives) claim telephone polling underrepresented conservatives because people who were out of work (and therefore more likely to be home during the day) would tend to skew

    • >"If the political leanings of iPhone users are different than those of Android users, what impact does this have on polling results? "

      None, because Android has had this feature for much longer than Apple (which is not atypical, either).

      But this is what I came to post. Polling by phone like this can't possibly be without bias and skewing in the data. I am sure there are confounds in who will actually accept and then complete such calls. I won't do either. And it is not because I don't think polls are

      • Someone further up states that he "looked at google-playstore and what i found was spammy looking bloated apps" - so other Android users would probably find it helpful if you explained how to locate this core Android feature.

        • >"Someone further up states that he "looked at google-playstore and what i found was spammy looking bloated apps" - so other Android users would probably find it helpful if you explained how to locate this core Android feature."

          It is the "do not disturb" feature, already built into Android for at least a few years (if I remember correctly). Just go into settings-> sound-> Do not disturb preferences-> Priority only allows-> and choose "Calls from contacts only"

          BTW- I like your signature.

          • Don't you have to turn on Do Not Disturb then to have that take effect?

            The iPhone Do Not Disturb is independent of the feature to not allow calls from people not in contacts.

            • Yeah, previous versions of iOS have also had the ability to do what Mark described; but I never took advantage of it because of the affect it would also have on reminders, calendar alerts, etc. For me, decoupling DND from silencing unknown callers is a welcome addition.

              DND might behave somewhat differently in Android, though.

              • >"DND might behave somewhat differently in Android, though."

                It does. You have full control if it allows reminders, alarms, events, and messages. It even has an option that will allow unknown callers (those not in your contacts) to go through IF they call more than once in 15 seconds. Honestly, I didn't realize it was that flexible or when they added such options, because I had been using a free app to do it (which works quite well for my needs).

            • >"Don't you have to turn on Do Not Disturb then to have that take effect?"

              Yes. I admit I have not used it because I have an app that does it better and gives finer control and more options (and I have been doing it longer than the base feature was added inside Android's "do not disturb" mode). The app I am using is called "Calls Blacklist"

              >"The iPhone Do Not Disturb is independent of the feature to not allow calls from people not in contacts."

              It is the same effect, however, I believe. Actually, bet

    • Now that Apple is releasing this feature, I'm sure Android won't be far behind. The only people left for the pollsters will be the elderly, who still believe it's rude not to answer the phone. Poor pollsters.

  • ... that 100% of the people they've polled answer poll questions.

  • Pollsters also have had a number of other problems.

    One is that people claiming to be pollsters started using scripts where they ask for you by first name at the start and ask you to confirm your full name at the end. This would make your response personally identifyable - dandy for targeting you according to your responses.

    Another is the campaign calls disguised as polls, along with the bogus polls attempting to get a desired result by weasel wording, which can then be used in adverttising campaigns to swing votes. These two types of push-polls (which may be combined) make people suspicious of pollsters.

    A third is the massive pressure by the political correctness contingent. This has led conservatives to answer poll questions in a more politically-correct fashion, then continue to vote their real opinions. This was apparently a part of the massive poll miss in the last presidential election and, with the escalation of social pressure since then (sometimes applied with things like beatdowns and other violent intimidation) you can count on it to be even larger next time around.

    A fourth is also deliberate dishonest or misleading answers, but given as an "in your face" by people who dislike the behavior of the mainstream media and their use of polls.

    • A fourth is also deliberate dishonest or misleading answers, but given as an "in your face" by people who dislike the behavior of the mainstream media and their use of polls.

      Back before I decided to simply not talk to pollsters, I will admit to being part of this fourth group.

      There were lots of reasons for this, but here's one: I live in Washington state. During the first several presidential elections which I was old enough to vote in, it was typical for the major television networks to "call" the presidential races by mid-afternoon our time... well before our polls closed, and even before people got off work, meaning most people here hadn't even voted yet! Yes, our state and

      • I can sympathize (I also live on the west coast), However, the polls used to call elections early were exit polls - reporters asking people leaving the voting locations whom they voted for.

        The telephone polls you were screwing up were used to forecast probable election results before the election. But these too have a corrosive effect on democracy. If they indicate one candidate is easily winning, they may cause that candidate's supporters to not bother to vote, figuring it's a sure thing. Likewise,

      • I live in Washington state. ... major ... networks [would] "call" the presidential races ... well before our polls closed, and even before people got off work, meaning most people here hadn't even voted yet! ... I took ... perverse pleasure in throwing national pollsters data off, albeit only one tiny whit.

        Good for you! ... while I realize my single answer (like my single vote) also didn't really matter,

        Sometimes it does. For instance, my one vote (along with those of exactly half of the other voters' B-

      • I'm an economist, with my Ph.D. jointly in statistics. I do know a *bit* about such things . . .

        Anyway, I believe it was after Carter conceded with the polls still open (costing his party several House seats in the west [and probably state elections, too]) that Mike Royko, a widely syndicated columnist at the time, repeatedly told his readers that they had a moral obligation to lie to exit pollsters.

        He was successful enough that "Do you read Mike Royko" actually got added to some exit polls (by those

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Certainly political correctness skewed the results of the polling for the last presidential election. If you are an evangelical, do you support the man who is poster child for casual and premarital sex, or the women who stood by her man as a faithful and adultery-free wife. As a person who says they are not a racist, do you support a man who says that all mexicans are rapists, or a women who wants to give health care to everyone, even maybe immigrants who were not born here?

      Polling requires some clevern

  • my iPhone can be set to "not allow" notifications from numbers not in my contacts when in Do Not Disturb mode, so I suppose I could just leave it in DND mode all the time. But that also silences my Calendar alerts, which I do NOT want it to do.

    Can I have my cake and eat it too?

    Really the ONLY thing I want is to VM calls from numbers not in my contacts, and nothing more. This is an iPhone 5S running iOS 12. And afaik 12 is as far as this phone will go.

  • been doing this and more in Android for years, with choice of voicemail or just blocking. can block texts too.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by elohssa ( 317266 )

      You could always do this with iOS as well (do not disturb, allow calls from: all contacts). But using that all the time makes it inconvenient to block all calls for a short time. This just frees up DND for it's expected usage.

      • but Android apps are better, can block a number so they'll never call you again, and identify as spammer with vote so if a high percent say it's a junk number, it can be blocked for others (if they so choose)

        What's really great is to block area code or that plus some more digits. Can block spammers who have pile of cell numbers or pollsters in some town, or from business with a bunch of extensions (yeah, block their whole damn town, I don't know anyone who lives there)

        There is similar thing for land lines,

    • The biggest problem is that far too many people don’t leave voicemails. I have explained over and over again that just because you hear a ringtone on your end, doesn’t mean that I actually heard one on my end. No voicemail? I’ll never know you called. Doesn’t have to be long, just “hey, it’s xyz, call me, no rush”. But that triggers an alert over the data connection, so at least I know you called.
      • I don't see the problem here. If someone doesn't leave me a voicemail it is obviously not important enough that I need to worry about it. If it was they would leave a message or call me again later. Either way no problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 )
      Google Voice has allowed this functionality since the days of flip phones

  • Why even mention them, aside from being an annoyance? We've had the cure for ages, but the demand is just not there. People would rather buy the defective product and complain.

  • Unintended consequence (Score:3)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @02:11PM (#59247308) Homepage
    Many medical personnel use their own phones to call patients instead of using the facility's phones. As you'll never have them all in your contact list, all of their calls will go straight to voice mail, making it harder to get test results or make appointments. And, if you ever need to call for roadside assistance, any callbacks from the truck drivers are going to be missed. Not the best of ideas on a cold, wet night!

    • Re:Unintended consequence (Score:4, Informative)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Saturday September 28, 2019 @02:13PM (#59247316)
      Well, I suppose you could just ... turn off that feature for a bit while you're waiting for your pancreatitis results or while you're broken down on the side of the road.
      • Yes, you could do that if you know you're expecting that call, and you remember. How about when you have no idea that your doctor's office is going to call you to set up an urgent appointment, or the ER is calling to tell you that your sister's been in an accident and you need to get down their fast?
        • Well, I don't know about you, but I have my phone set up so that if I miss a call and someone leaves voice mail, I get an alert. And then the display on the phone shows that I have voicemail waiting for me. If you did NOT have this feature turned on, but happened to be on another call, you'd pretty much experience exactly the same thing.
          • Back in early July, I had a bad trip and fall accident and ended up in the ER with a broken kneecap and wrist. My sister was at work and couldn't check her phone, but I knew that and left messages. When she was done, she came home without checking her messages and wondered where I was until somebody at the hospital brought me home. If she'd had this app, and it was the hospital calling, the odds are that the same thing would have happened. How many people do you think would bother to check after an unkn

            • How many people do you think would bother to check after an unknown number went to voice mail?

              How many people do you think silence/dismiss an unrecognized inbound call in the first place, in the absence of such a feature? I do it ten times a day. If one of them happens to be motivated enough to leave a voice mail, then I'll see the voice mail alert on my phone next time I happen to glance at my phone. Most people glance at their phones several times an hour.

          • Well, I don't know about you, but I have my phone set up so that if I miss a call and someone leaves voice mail, I get an alert. And then the display on the phone shows that I have voicemail waiting for me.

            OK, you get an alert from the hosp that you need to phone them, so you phone them back. Have you ever tried phoning a hospital? Be prepared for a long runaround before you get to speak to anyone with clue why they first rang you, and you probably won't even get that far.

            • really? sounds like you have only dealt with really really bad hospitals. such a runaround costs staff time, I have dealt with hospitals a lot due to step father and sister with cancer and any half decent hospital will leave very detailed instructions on the number to call and what/who to ask for. If their is runaround then you have a really badly run hospital.
        • If you are that paranoid about missing an important call then don't use the feature it is that simple. For me I am happy to chance missing that call as I know I will get an immediate voicemail message a couple of seconds later.
    • Youâ€(TM)re assuming that people who turn on this feature would have otherwise answered the phone. Iâ€(TM)ve actually gotten a number of medical calls lately and I havenâ€(TM)t picked up a single one, since I canâ€(TM)t distinguish them from spam calls. Businesses that rely on models like this will have to adapt. My doctorâ€(TM)s office uses an app to communicate, and Uber drivers message you instead of calling n
      • Youâ(TM)re assuming that people who turn on this feature would have otherwise answered the phone.

        No, I'm assuming that they would have looked at the phone and decided for themselves if they should pick up or not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Jeremi ( 14640 )

          No, I'm assuming that they would have looked at the phone and decided for themselves if they should pick up or not.

          Decided based on what? If you get an incoming call from an unknown caller, unless you've previously memorized their number (which you haven't, because almost nobody does that anymore; if they want to "remember" a number they add a record to their contacts-list instead), the only way to find out if it is a scammer is to answer the call. You certainly can't make a decision based on the area code or first three digits of the caller ID, because the scammers know that trick and actively try to impersonate phon

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Corbets ( 169101 )

      Many medical personnel use their own phones to call patients instead of using the facility's phones. As you'll never have them all in your contact list, all of their calls will go straight to voice mail, making it harder to get test results or make appointments. And, if you ever need to call for roadside assistance, any callbacks from the truck drivers are going to be missed. Not the best of ideas on a cold, wet night!

      That’s something of an edge case, I should think...but in any case, I almost never answer a call from a number I don’t recognize, period. Hell, I often don’t even if I do recognize the number. People who have something important to say will leave a voicemail or follow up with a text or email, and I can continue focusing on whatever I was working on / whoever I was speaking face-to-face with at the time (I find it unconscionably rude to answer the phone when speaking with someone else - you

    • Real medical personnel (as opposed to marketers pretending to be medical personnel) will leave messages.

  • ...exactly what the 'allow contacts only' has done for 10 years or so? Block unknown numbers?

  • As an "Old Fart", I generally responded to telephone surveys to my home number. I was sitting at home, without a whole lot going on, and sometimes they were fun.

    Poll calls to CELLULAR phones changed all that. At first, I was being charged by the second when I was on the phone, but also because calls to my cell phone often came when I was driving, or at dinner, or in a theater, and the calls were a real interruption.

    Now, when a lot of people have dropped their landline service completely, and with the expl

  • Out of the hundred angles you could take on this story, "A new iPhone feature poses a threat to opinion pollsters" would be way down on my list of possible headlines. I'd start with "A new iPhone feature will make life measurably better for millions of users" and work my way down from there. All you need to do is remember to turn it off if you're expecting an unusual call, eg. if a plumber is coming or you're waiting for a tow or something.

    Remember, kids: legit calls will leave a voicemail. So if it's your

    • "A new iPhone feature poses a threat to opinion pollsters" would be way down on my list of possible headlines. I'd start with "A new iPhone feature will make life measurably better for millions of users"

      Same thing. I did not even realise that the "threat to pollsters" was meant to sound like a bad thing until I started reading the comments.

  • Finally, we can crush phone sales and junk calls easily. As far as pollsters go, never agree to answer questions. They sell the leads to other polling companies and you become the ultimate phone chump.
  • I'm always astounded to see Apple introduce 'features' that I've been using for a decade on my Android phones. The list is so long it wouldn't fit the margins of this post...
  • Welcome to February 2016 [androidforums.com] when it was a common feature already in Android... But now it's on the iPhone, so it must be "new"!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • > If people soliciting donations for worthy causes
      > didnâ(TM)t ... maybe more people would be willing to
      > hear them out and consider making donations.

      Well, there's an easy fix for that. I decided long ago that no one who interrupts my day and puts my on the spot for a donation gets so much as a single red cent; no matter what their cause is, or how worthy it may or may not be. That includes the kids that Greenpeace and Planned Parenthood exploit to tug at your heartstrings on the sidewalk.

      • I transitioned to this policy a few years ago as well. for me this includes door knockers and phone calls as well. I used to try and listen and give if I thought worthy but then you end up on a damn list as a sucker and the rate of calls escalates. Now it is only when I choose, absolutely ZERO methods of them contacting me first are accepted anymore and many I literally tell them on the phone please remove me from your list as I do not accept unsolicited calls for donations.
  • it could be disastrous for the faltering public-polling industry
    Waaaah!! WAAAHHH!! Sniff sniff... WWAAAAHHHH

    The challenges telephone pollsters face have been growing.
    Boo hooo! Sniffle, snifflee WAAAHHH!! WAAAAHHH!!

    Polling by phone has become very expensive
    Id's not fair! WAAAAAAHHH!! I NEED MY BLANKIE!! WAAAHHH!!

    as the number of Americans willing to respond to unexpected or unknown callers has dropped.
    WAAAAHH!! WE CANT HAWASS PEOPLE ANYMORE! WAAAAAHHHH!!! MMUMMMYYYY ID'S NOT FAIR!

    Cunts.

  • Here's how to make the polls work... publish the numbers of the reputable organizations like Gallup and AP Ipsos, and get people to add them to their address books. This is the right way to preview the American voters reactions, and people should enjoy talking to friendly pollsters.

  • I don't see this option in iPhone 6+'s iOS v12.4.2. :(

  • Besides political problems, the biggest issue with "Unknown" numbers is caller-id spoofing. There are good and legitimate reasons for using this ability; an agency might want a recipient to get a central call-back number instead of the exact phone that made the call. But 99.999999% of the time, this "feature" is abused. It's time for it to go away, legitimate uses- sorry, too bad.

    Whitelisting and blacklisting can only be enhanced by truthfully knowing just who is calling you. It would be nice for indiv

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