Skip to main content

New Truecaller iMessage filtering feature blocks spam in iOS 11

truecaller
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Apple iMessage’s group chat features, read receipts, and stickers make it a great alternative to texting, but it’s hardly perfect. Take spam for example: The same annoying telemarketing services that junk up your private line use iMessage, too, and iMessage doesn’t make it any easier to block their numbers or delete their messages. But that’s where Truecaller comes in. Starting Tuesday, September 26, Truecaller on iOS 11 will filter out text message spam from iMessage and send it directly to a junk tab.

Truecaller, an anti-spam app that blocks more than 100 million unsolicited texts a week across more than 250 million devices, adapted its filtering algorithms to iMessage. With the Truecaller app installed and enabled and the iMessage filtering feature turned on, the new version of the app automatically detects, deletes, and blocks spam before it hits your inbox.

Recommended Videos

“We’re always looking for ways to increase safety while communicating,” Rishit Jhunjhunwala, vice president of product at Truecaller, said. “Now, iPhone users will have a powerful tool to automatically filter junk and spam SMS, which has been highly requested by our users.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Truecaller’s upgrade comes at a time when spam messages are on the rise. More than 22.1 million Americans receive an estimated 8.4 million spam texts or SMS messages per month, according to a study commissioned by Truecaller.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

There’s been a groundswell of support for anti-spam initiatives in recent months. The federal government has imposed more than $1.2 billion in fines on telemarketers, and Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., recently introduced legislation requiring telecom companies to offer free robocall-blocking technology. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), meanwhile, has hosted two meetings of the Robocall Strike Force, a joint effort across carriers tasked with providing solutions to the problem of robocalls.

By and large, corporations have stepped up to the plate, too. In September 2016, Sprint expanded a partnership with Cequint to develop “enhanced caller ID solutions” that could be used to prevent spam calls from reaching customers. And in December, AT&T followed suit with Call Protect, a network-level feature that automatically blocks numbers flagged as “fraudulent” and lets customers temporarily block custom numbers for a period of 30 days.

Alan Mamedi, Truecaller’s CEO and head of product, sees his team advancing the cause. “From the very beginning we have worked relentlessly to build a product that helps simplify communications for consumers across the globe, and helps them address important needs such as knowing the identity of those calling, and blocking unwanted numbers.”

Kyle Wiggers
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kyle Wiggers is a writer, Web designer, and podcaster with an acute interest in all things tech. When not reviewing gadgets…
Is watchOS 11 giving you bad Apple Watch battery life? A fix is here
Someone wearing an original Apple Watch Ultra showing the battery.

The launch of Apple's watchOS 11 a few weeks ago brought many exciting new features to the , including a translation app, sleep apnea detection, and even new watch faces.

Unfortunately, it also introduced a bug that chews through the watch's battery like a bear in an apple orchard. Good news: Apple is releasing a fix for this annoying glitch in watchOS 11.0.1.

Read more
I found an app that fixes macOS Sequoia’s annoying pop-ups
macOS Sequoia being introduced by Apple's Craig Federighi at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024.

Years ago, back when I used Windows Vista, I got so annoyed by the constant User Account Control (UAC) pop-ups asking for permission seemingly every time I did anything that I downloaded an app that could silence them for good. Perhaps not the most sensible thing to do from a security perspective -- OK, definitely not the most sensible thing to do -- but I was a desperate man. These days, I’m getting similar vibes from macOS Sequoia.

That’s because Apple’s latest operating system will nag you about permissions on a monthly basis for anything that records your screen. Granted, it’s not as frequent as what I’d get in Windows Vista -- and these prompts were actually weekly in the macOS Sequoia beta, which caused such a blowback from users that Apple changed the frequency -- but it still feels like it’s going to be a real pain for me and a lot of users. Sure, macOS Sequoia hasn’t actually been out long enough for me to be bugged by these alerts every month yet, but I don’t want to hang around until I start pulling my hair out. I need to take action now.

Read more
Apple’s tabletop device might usher in a new OS with Apple Intelligence
Apple HomePod 2023

Apple has reportedly been working on a new kind of display-focused smart home device for a while now, and it seems it will arrive as early as next year. Now, Bloomberg reports that Apple is eyeing not one but two such devices across different price points and that they will mark the era of a new AI-first software approach.

Codenamed J595, this one is a high-end machine that features a large iPad-inspired screen and robotic limbs. The other one, which internally goes by the J490 identifier, is more like a conventional smart display — think a screen slapped on a speaker base – that would predominantly serve as a FaceTime machine and smart home control hub.

Read more