Spam and scam calls are a growing nuisance, which is why a reliable caller ID service (and particularly one that can automatically dial or block known scam numbers) is almost essential. Unfortunately, this is not something that Apple offers natively, and while there are some third-party caller ID services, these can be quite hit and miss or come at an additional cost. But finally Apple is taking the first steps towards this service.
The company has announced (via Engadget) that, next year, it will allow businesses enrolled in Apple Business Connect to sign up for Business Caller ID. With this, your company name, logo and department will appear on the incoming call screen when contacting customers.
This should make it much easier to differentiate a legitimate call from a spam call since if no logo is displayed, there is a high probability that it is a spam call. If there is a logo, you can judge based on the company calling whether it is likely something you want to respond to.
a good start
This still isn't a perfect solution – businesses will need to sign up and we can imagine many smaller ones won't – although at least it's a free service, so there aren't too many barriers to entry. And of course, this only applies to businesses, not personal numbers, so not all genuine calls will be identified.
This system is also not designed to specifically flag or block unwanted and fraudulent calls, so they will continue to ring your phone.
Still, it's a big, overdue step in the right direction from Apple, and anyone who receives frequent calls from unknown numbers will probably be very happy.
It's unclear exactly when this commercial caller ID service will launch next year, but the sooner the better as far as we're concerned.
