Dennis Sellers for Apple World Today:
Hiya, which specializes in nuisance and scam call protection, that released findings showing that as robocalls continue to rise, Americans are using their mobile phones less and less to make and receive calls.
According to Hiya’s analysis, spam calls grew to 25.3 billion in the first half of 2019, up 128% compared to the same period last year, and nearly reaching the 26.3 billion robocalls Americans received in all of 2018. The average number of spam calls a consumer receives has more than doubled in the last six months, up to 16 per month compared to seven at the end of last year.
Simultaneously, the number of calls being picked up has dropped to less than one in two (48%), a four percent decline since Hiya initially released the State of the Phone Call report in January. The number of calls Americans make is being impacted as well. On average, people make and receive a total of 178 calls per month, a 17% decrease since the beginning of the year.
MacDailyNews Take: The last thing we use our iPhone for is voice. It’s been that way since 2007.
It’s funny, also that one of the most advanced things our phones can do – transmit sounds in real-time (or close enough) allowing users to conduct a conversation – was one of the things that was invented so long ago. Maybe that’s way we don’t use it; it’s “old.” It’s also ethereal and we prefer to have text to which we can then refer (or tap) for things like addresses, directions, phone numbers (ha!), flight times, etc.
I wish anyone related to robocalling to live long, miserable lives filled will illness and disease.
I find voice calls to be good. I like hearing a friends voice or if I’m conducting business I like hearing the tone of the other person’s voice and being able to confirm the main points.
I almost never answer calls from unknown callers. Friends, relatives, doctors, dentists, etc. are all in my contacts. When I get a voice mail from someone I know I make sure to add them to contacts.
Total failure by the FCC and the telecoms in stemming this, worthless tools. The new feature in ios 13 will be a welcome addition. Send the bastards directly to voicemail. Be cool if there was a way to just have these deleted out of voicemail automatically also. ios 14 maybe?
Thanks for the reminder to cancel my landline service. It’s pretty much just a spam delivery device these days.
Even though we seldom use our phones for voice, voice is still one of the primary focuses of our devices. For example, whenever a phone call comes through while you’re using your phone, everything is paused and stopped and the entire screen is blank to show you that a phone call is coming through. You don’t have any choice to ignore it and you must either accept or reject it right there.
The interface should be changed so that phone calls can be shown as a regular notification at the top of the screen that can be easily dismissed or actioned without interrupting the user completely
“and you must either accept or reject it right there.”
I don’t have the option to reject so I have to wait for voicemail to take the call. I have 6S and latest iOS.
Good I wish it was 99%. Fuck all these Robo: pieces of shit. I hope no one ever picks up a phone for them again.
Alternate headline: More than half of all calls are from worthless robo POS.