Mobile

If you’re tired of spam calls interrupting your day and endless hold music draining your patience, iOS 26 has arrived with two game-changing features that transform how you handle phone calls. Apple’s latest update includes Call Screening and Hold Assist—tools designed to give you back control over your phone.

Call Screening: Your Personal Gatekeeper Against Scammers

Call Screening is iOS 26’s answer to the relentless wave of telemarketing and scam calls that plague smartphone users. Instead of your phone ringing every time an unknown number dials in, this feature creates a protective barrier between you and potential nuisances.

How It Works

When someone who’s not in your contacts calls, a Siri-style voice automatically answers and asks them to provide their name and reason for calling. The information is transcribed to text and shown to you, allowing you to decide whether to accept, decline, or ask for more information. The beauty of this system? You never have to engage directly with the caller unless you choose to.

For telemarketers and scammers, this creates an immediate obstacle. Robocalls and spam operations typically can’t interact with the screening prompts effectively, making this feature particularly powerful at filtering out unwanted calls.

Setting It Up

Call Screening isn’t enabled by default—you need to turn it on yourself. Here’s how:

1. Update your iPhone to iOS 26 (available for iPhone 11 and newer models)
2. Open Settings, then go to Apps
3. Tap Phone
4. Scroll to “Screen Unknown Callers”

You’ll see three options: “Never” (call screening off), “Ask Reason for Calling” (screening enabled), or “Silence” (unknown calls go straight to voicemail with transcription).

Real-World Impact

The results can be dramatic. After leaving this on for a few days, my number of spam calls has dropped dramatically. The feature has been described as bringing “pure bliss” to iPhone users weary of constant interruptions.

Hold Assist: Never Wait on Hold Again

While Call Screening protects you from unwanted incoming calls, Hold Assist tackles the other phone frustration we all face: being stuck on hold with customer service.

How It Works

Hold Assist automatically kicks in when you’re placed on hold during a call. Your iPhone detects the hold music and offers to wait for you. If you accept, your phone monitors the line in the background while you go about your day. When a real human picks up, you receive a notification alerting you to return to the call.

Unlike Call Screening, Hold Assist requires no setup—it works automatically from the moment you install iOS 26, and it’s available on all devices that support the update, not just Apple Intelligence-enabled phones.

The Convenience Factor

This feature is especially valuable when dealing with airlines, insurance companies, or tech support lines where wait times can stretch into hours. Instead of sitting by your phone listening to elevator music, you can respond to emails, make dinner, or do literally anything else productive.

Privacy First

Both features process information on-device, meaning your privacy isn’t compromised by sending data to cloud services. Everything happens securely on your iPhone.

The Bottom Line

iOS 26’s calling features represent Apple’s most significant phone improvements in years. Call Screening helps you avoid distractions, protect your privacy, and filter out robocalls and scams before they ever reach you. Meanwhile, Hold Assist saves you countless hours of listening to repetitive hold music.

If you haven’t updated to iOS 26 yet and you’re constantly battling spam calls or lengthy customer service wait times, these features alone make the upgrade worthwhile. In an era where our phones do everything from AI assistance to mobile payments, it’s refreshing to see Apple innovating on the most fundamental function: actually making and receiving phone calls.