If you are reading this guide, you must be a proud iPhone or iPad owner, the coolest of all digital toys. Unfortunately, while using these Apple gadgets feels amazing, those annoying promotional and robocalls might ruin your experience. That’s where you need to load your iOS devices with powerful spam call blockers.
You bought your iPhone because you wanted a powerful device that would let you do every exciting thing, like taking classy pictures and videos to share with your friends and family, and significantly improve your overall digital experience. Calls from robots, spam, and potential scammers are not how you want to use your phone. It’s a waste of your time and resources, not to mention how annoying and inopportune it is every time it happens.
Thankfully, you don’t have to put up with that at all. This article lists the best seven free spam call blocker apps to get rid of spam calls on your iPhone.
Best spam calls blockers for iOS devices – Quick list
Here is a summary of the top robocall blocker apps for iPhone to deliver you a phone spam-free life. If you want to know more about these apps, read along.
- RoboShield. It’s our top choice among all iOS spam call blockers. RoboShield adopts many different security measures and implements them holistically to improve your experience better than any other option.
- Truecaller. The best free app on our list. It includes many helpful features, and is one of the most popular apps in this category.
- Nomorobo Robocall Blocking. Complete blocking is the name of the game with Nomorobo Robocall Blocking. It will send all the spam straight into your voice mail.
- YouMail Voicemail and Spam Blocker. A good option for corporate users. The blocking options are centered around your voicemail. The pricing tiers are focused on business users.
- RoboKiller. With RoboKiller, you can have the joy of giving spammers a taste of their own medicine. It sends the calls to an AI answering machine for wasting their time — and it records everything.
- Malwarebytes Mobile Security. It protects you from spam while offering many other security options. So it’s phone spam blocking with a plus.
- Hiya. The last one on our list is trendy, even with T-Mobile and At&T, who use this blocker in their very own services.
What are spam calls?
A spam call is an unsolicited call often initiated with malicious intentions. The ultimate goal of the caller is to ensure damage to the recipient, more frequently – financial damage.
Spam calls come in all shapes and sizes and can be difficult to stop. Technological advancements, such as the introduction of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) and caller ID spoofing, have worsened the situation.
Spam calls are commonly grouped into the following:
- Telemarketing: They are calls originating from live individuals attempting to sell a product. These calls are often not fraudulent.
- Legal robocalls: Unlike live calls, these are automated calls for billing or other services. They are usually not spam.
- Illegal robocalls: These calls are usually pre-recorded and sent to you without authorization. Such calls include scam loans, auto-warranty calls, and other scams.
- Scam calls: Entails live persons giving you a call to scam you. This category includes calls such as ransom calls.
Where do spam calls come from?
The first category of spam calls reported in the US by the Federal Trade Commission included IRS scams, Social Security Scams, and nanny scams. Further, the commission provided that medical scams, warranty, debt, and tech-support scams were the second most common category of scam calls. Another common scam was the auto-warranty renewal scam.
These frauds often have a logical structure. For instance, you may encounter more IRS frauds during tax filing season than in other seasons. In 2020, the public saw increased scams related to COVID-19 testing. In 2020 during the California wildfires, households received scam calls from con artists posing as the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Aid scams are a common response to calamities around the US.
Scammers are systematic. They first hook you using a convincing pitch. The second step involves pretending to address the matter highlighted in the first step. They ensure they gather as much personal information as possible to win your trust. Next, they proceed to solicit funds from you. They either trick you into sending money directly or gain access to your banking login information and do it themselves.
How to pick the best Apple spam call blocker
Apple invests a lot of resources in keeping the apps in its App Store as safe and reliable as possible. But you will still find several options for each category, so the question is always, which ones are worth trying?
We went through many of the available apps and selected the seven best ones according to the criteria below.
- App Store reviews and user rating. Aim for nothing short of four stars with at least 1000 posted reviews.
- Customer service. You should never need it, but it has to be quick and helpful when you do.
- Feature quality.
- Price. If you’re getting charged for something, you better get value for your money.
No single app is perfect in every regard, of course. But it can have enough value for us to recommend it to you with pride in a job well done.