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I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone

I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. My issue with phone calls is 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. It's completely fixable, but American telcos make money off letting scammers operating boiler rooms in India steal money from your grandparents, so they're happy to utterly destroy any utility that a phone has. It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know. The few times (like now, unfortunately) I expect a call from an unknown number related to follow-up for in-person business, when I answer 95% or more of incoming calls are scams/spam. This is with "Spam Block" enabled, that already blocks known scam/robocall numbers AND NoMoRobo, what slips through is still the majority spam/scams. I can't even imagine walking around with a cellular phone in 2022 without any of these tools, it's probably a hellscape just like using the web in 2022 without uBlock Origin, NoScript, and PiHole. We can do better, and the adtech industry + the telcos making money off straight up scammers has destroyed the very fabric of technology as used for social connection.

InCityDreams 4y ago
Top tip (eu based). Don't hang up. Let the robo talk. Often, a human comes on afterwards. Don't talk to them. If I'm at home (alone) i try and load some porn on the pc and have that play to them. Otherwise, go to the bathroom. They're paid to talk to you....if you're not talking, some supervisor will notice and eventually you get blacklisted. Waste their time, not yours.
achow 4y ago
> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know In my case 90% of time people I know call over WhatsApp or other Voip calls. Whereas 100% of phone calls from 'critical strangers' are over phone. 'Critical strangers' are delivery persons or cab drivers or courier or office colleagues... those who are calling to find out my whereabouts (critical in that context).
glonq 4y ago
I get far more robocalls than real calls. I really appreciate the call screening feature of Google's Pixel phones!
WorldMaker 4y ago
Yeah, I thought this article was going to be about robocalls. I don't think I'm alone in realizing that for now most robocalls auto-disconnect if they don't hear anything on the line for somewhere between 15 seconds to a minute depending on the software's patience I suppose. This has taught me to never answer the phone for an unknown number and immediately say something, just to put it on speakerphone and let it pick up ambient fan noise or whatever for a minute-ish. If it is a robocall and it auto-hangs up, I win. If it is an actual person calling it is an awkward etiquette dance for a minute or so while people wait for that polite "Hello?" that the receiver is supposed to kick off the conversation with. I don't know if the etiquette needs to shift in a time of robo-callers or what. I appreciate that there's an increasing air of excuse now of "fiddling with my phone equipment because calls are so rare" that this article addresses (though the article believes this to be a bad thing).
- larrik 4y ago
  You may be over-doing it. Most robo-calls wait for a second "hello?". So you can say it once, then wait a bit for a human to answer normally. Then if they don't, you just hang up, as the computer is waiting for that 2nd "hello?".
  - r00fus 4y ago
    I even just answer with a grunt or in a foreign language (e.g. "hola"). People know I may be juggling a mobile handset, automated systems hang up.
    - WorldMaker 4y ago
      That is something I often rely on ambient noise to do. My work keyboard is quite loud. My home a/c makes a ton of white noise and the occasional thump when it clicks off. It also currently makes a lot of loud water sounds when it is off. I use throat clearing and coughs sometimes, too. It's a silly game to play with these robocalls what they are/are not listening for and it seems to change from time to time (and obviously from bot to bot). "Dead silence" is sometimes easiest and the easiest way to describe it (though I believe I did mention I generally put things on speaker and rely on ambient noise), but yes, not "required" and it is a dumb space to explore sometimes.
jasonlotito 4y ago
> I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. I have had many of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods/AirPods Pro/AirPods Max w/ an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook since AirPods came out. I now use a Bose headset. It works. My AirPod devices do not.
robomartin 4y ago
> 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I have always thought that a simple --and likely very effective-- way to combat robocalls is to charge a nominal fee for all calls not in your address book. That fee could be $1 or more. It really doesn't matter how much other than having to be enough to be costly for those making unwelcome calls. The charge is levied both ways. If someone you don't know calls you, they pay $1. If you call them back, you pay them $1. The phone company handles this, of course. An alternative is that the charge is registered to their account and credited if you call them back. Being that billing is monthly, the net effect is that no money exchanges hands unless calls are not returned. If you did not respond, the next time the same number calls you the charge is increased by a nominal amount, say, 25%. Oh, yes, of course, the money goes to you, minus a, say 30% fee to the phone company. This accounting happens at the end of the month, not call-by-call. If someone wants to make a million unsolicited calls, it's going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of that money will go to the people they are spamming because they will not return the calls. Anyone in your address book is exempt from these transactions. Without diving deeper, this seems like a simple, clean and perhaps even elegant way to deal with the issue. Let the free market do it. If spammers want to give you hundreds of dollars per month just to make your phone ring, so be it. Yes, of course, there could be an incentive there for the phone company because, in the aggregate, that 30% might add-up to a nice pile of money. I'm sure there's a creative way to manage that. Perhaps something like a metric based on that income that penalizes them for not doing a better job of filtering the calls. This is where detailed analysis of the proposal is necessary.
- progman32 4y ago
  I don't understand why a scammer wouldn't just add the number to their address book before calling. Also as an individual this would be kinda scary. Not to mention the fact I have to share my private address book, but also if my friend forgets to add me I can randomly have to pay?
- tristor 4y ago
  > Without diving deeper, this seems like a simple, clean and perhaps even elegant way to deal with the issue. I like your idea in theory. In practice, many of the calls are originating from countries which would not comply with any regulatory framework requiring this, and are in many cases intentionally complicit in scamming. Additionally, it would require telcos to know every number in your address book, something I think is frankly none of their business.
mtmail 4y ago
The US situation is fascinating. I got 5 calls this years and 3 were my bank (callcenter, real human) I didn't want to talk to. No spam-block or similar software on my phone. I checked and I have 16 phone numbers blocked total on the phone, that must have been collected over 8-10 years. Germany.
filoleg 4y ago
> I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. Not trying to defend US or its telecoms here, but I think it has more to do with scammers trying to maximize for profit. Just like with malware heavily targeting Windows instead of macOS/Linux, or some apps prioritizing iOS instead of Android (by either launching as iOS-only and then introducing an Android version later, or just not holding up the quality and polish of the iOS version on Android). It isn't because Windows is inherently more insecure, and not because Android is a worse platform. It is simply because it makes sense moneywise. Why would a scammer focus on targeting low-disposable-income countries, if they, on average, can extract as much money from one US person as they would have to from 10-15 people in Phillipines. For scammers, it seems to be simply more profitable and efficient to target US residents.
- aikendrum 4y ago
  This is nothing to do with low or high income countries. Europe exists. I've lived (and had local phones) in Ireland, Germany and the UK. I've never had a spam call. I've had less than 10 spam texts ever. The US (from an outsider perspective) just doesn't seem to enforce consumer protections in general.
- zinekeller 4y ago
  > Why would a scammer focus on targeting low-disposable-income countries, if they, on average, can extract as much money from one US person as they would have to from 10-15 people in Phillipines. I don't think anyone disputes this, but apart from Canada (which has a largely similar telco structure) no other developed country has this plague of undesirable robocalls. You could probably net a similar payout in the UK or Germany but as far as I'm aware there isn't a robocall problem in Europe (and the only problem that is remotely telephone-related is those scare scams where a malicious ad displays a number to be called, not the other way around).
- dfxm12 4y ago
  Are you implying US is the only non-low-disposable-income country? lol. This isn't a problem in say, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, etc., as it is in the US. Also, the most spammed country appears to be Brazil, and it is far from the top of the disposable income lists. Many among the most spammed countries don't register on the top disposable income lists. There's something else at play here. Likely legislation/regulation. Spam info: https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights-top-20-countries-affected-by-spam-calls-in-2020-2 https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights... Disposable income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
knaekhoved 4y ago
> I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out I bought airpods day 1 and I've had every single issue described in the article. Carplay is unreliable. Airpods are unreliable. As apple hardware steadily improves, apple software steadily degrades.
klooney 4y ago
I got a Pixel phone and spam calls have almost disappeared (1 a month). They seem to be doing something around extra screening that's pretty good and useful.
- daggersandscars 4y ago
  If you're using a non-Pixel Android phone, you may be able to get the same benefits by switching from your manufacturer's Phone app to Google's. Doing this on a Samsung S22 Ultra took me from tons of spam calls to none.
  - creeble 4y ago
    Where does one find this magical app? I see lots of "phone" apps in Play Store, but I can't identify one specifically from Google.
adriand 4y ago
> I have never had any of the issues described in this article Really? Because a telephone call is, by definition, between at least two people. And even if you have your shit sorted out, I find it surprising that every one of your contacts does too. Because although I, too, generally have the process down pat (it's true: it's crazy there needs to be a process around this now), a lot of the people I talk to sure don't.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  Can echo GP. Simply have not had this been a problem for me. I call. Other party picks up. We start talking.
spookthesunset 4y ago
> American telcos make money off letting scammers operating boiler rooms in India steal money from your grandparents, so they're happy to utterly destroy any utility that a phone has. Not sure how telcos profit off scammers. Especially since I would imagine many times their payments are fraudulent. If anything these scammers waste the telco’s time too. This problem clearly isn’t getting fixed but I feel like saying “telcos make bank off scammers” is just too easy of a reason. There has to be some underlying reason this is a hard problem to solve.
- ralph84 4y ago
  The telco of the user who places the call pays the telco of the user who answers the call. Every scam call that’s actually answered is money in the pocket of the telco that serves the scam victim.
armchairhacker 4y ago
> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. I tell people this whenever I give out my phone number. Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you, if they want to reach out they can text or email, and I can't imagine many urgent situations where they can't text, can't forward the message through anyone in my contacts, and can't directly get the authorities to contact me. The only exception is automated phone calls (e.g. call from a random number for an interview or to confirm 2FA where I can't do SMS), in which case I have to temporarily disable silencing calls. But systems where you get called once from a random number and can't call back are really awful for other reasons...
- res0nat0r 4y ago
  I get tons of spam calls and texts, but I really never see any of them anymore. I'm on Android and Googles distributed spam detection is really working great. I'll get a notice sometimes that I got a txt moved to spam but most of the time I never see these, and it seems to also block all robocalls too and they only go straight to voicemail. I probably have 15 voicemails right now I never knew came through because they're junk and auto-blocked.
- ipython 4y ago
  That worked until my son was hit by a car, and my wife in her shock had no idea where her phone was. I’m still to this day guilty that I didn’t pick up the phone the first time it rang. The truth is that this problem will kill the telephone system and honestly if this is how the telcos treat it, it deserves to die.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    What did you have to feel guilty about? You could have done something for your son, remotely, that wasn't already being done?
    - stonogo 4y ago
bbarn 4y ago
I get the same issues I did in the US here in Iceland, fwiw. I get the added bonus of no longer being able to use many voice activated features because names aren't phonetically pronounced or simply have characters that aren't recognized by CarPlay. "Call Þórunn mobile." "I don't have a Thorin." "Call Porun mobile" "I don't have a porun".
- 01acheru 4y ago
  I had to call my mom "Mamma" in every possible field for Siri to call her when I say "Hey Siri call mamma" (I'm Italian but my phone is in English). Before that she was only "mamma" as first name but I had other "mamma zoe", "mamma ale", "mamma gio" and Siri always wanted to call "mamma zoe" when I said "Hey Siri call mamma". After filling some fields of my mamma she started asking "Who would you like to call?" and started saying all mammas in my phone book, but when I said "mamma mamma" she started calling a random one or not getting it. Now that I have my Mamma (first name) Mamma (middle name) Mamma (last name) of company Mamma nicknamed Mamma with email mamma@mamma it works... go figure!
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    I think I have a solution for you, and it's going to be a mother.
- mathieuh 4y ago
  You can give contacts nicknames and Siri will recognise that instead of their main name. So if you set Þórunn's nickname to be "thorin" Siri will be able to recognise it. Basically just go through your contacts and give them all nicknames that are English phonetic spellings of their real name.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
  Not that you should have to do this, but you can tell Siri (using your own voice) how to pronounce your contacts’ names. She’ll transcribe it into IPA or something.
- knicholes 4y ago
barbazoo 4y ago
Not to jinx it but I haven't gotten any robocalls recently. I'm in Canada and I wonder if the regulations the CRTC introduced around STIR/SHAKEN might have made a difference already?!
- poxrud 4y ago
  I'm also in Canada and get about 5 scam calls per day.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    That sucks. Maybe I'm just lucky then. Possibly it depends on the carrier?
binkHN 4y ago
My Pixel phone has largely solved this for me. The built-in Call Screening is stellar and I don’t get bothered by robocalls much anymore because of how well the phone handles these.
- david_arcos 4y ago
  Same here! "Call Screening" killed all the robocalls, or potential robocalls.
- JoshTriplett 4y ago
  Likewise. Half the spammers hang up the moment I activate call screening, the other half (probably automated) keep talking and then I hit the spam button. All the (marginal) benefit of saying "take me off your spam list", far less trouble.

InCityDreams 4y ago

Top tip (eu based). Don't hang up. Let the robo talk. Often, a human comes on afterwards. Don't talk to them. If I'm at home (alone) i try and load some porn on the pc and have that play to them. Otherwise, go to the bathroom. They're paid to talk to you....if you're not talking, some supervisor will notice and eventually you get blacklisted. Waste their time, not yours.

achow 4y ago

> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know In my case 90% of time people I know call over WhatsApp or other Voip calls. Whereas 100% of phone calls from 'critical strangers' are over phone. 'Critical strangers' are delivery persons or cab drivers or courier or office colleagues... those who are calling to find out my whereabouts (critical in that context).

glonq 4y ago

I get far more robocalls than real calls. I really appreciate the call screening feature of Google's Pixel phones!

WorldMaker 4y ago

Yeah, I thought this article was going to be about robocalls. I don't think I'm alone in realizing that for now most robocalls auto-disconnect if they don't hear anything on the line for somewhere between 15 seconds to a minute depending on the software's patience I suppose. This has taught me to never answer the phone for an unknown number and immediately say something, just to put it on speakerphone and let it pick up ambient fan noise or whatever for a minute-ish. If it is a robocall and it auto-hangs up, I win. If it is an actual person calling it is an awkward etiquette dance for a minute or so while people wait for that polite "Hello?" that the receiver is supposed to kick off the conversation with. I don't know if the etiquette needs to shift in a time of robo-callers or what. I appreciate that there's an increasing air of excuse now of "fiddling with my phone equipment because calls are so rare" that this article addresses (though the article believes this to be a bad thing).

larrik 4y ago
You may be over-doing it. Most robo-calls wait for a second "hello?". So you can say it once, then wait a bit for a human to answer normally. Then if they don't, you just hang up, as the computer is waiting for that 2nd "hello?".
- r00fus 4y ago
  I even just answer with a grunt or in a foreign language (e.g. "hola"). People know I may be juggling a mobile handset, automated systems hang up.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    That is something I often rely on ambient noise to do. My work keyboard is quite loud. My home a/c makes a ton of white noise and the occasional thump when it clicks off. It also currently makes a lot of loud water sounds when it is off. I use throat clearing and coughs sometimes, too. It's a silly game to play with these robocalls what they are/are not listening for and it seems to change from time to time (and obviously from bot to bot). "Dead silence" is sometimes easiest and the easiest way to describe it (though I believe I did mention I generally put things on speaker and rely on ambient noise), but yes, not "required" and it is a dumb space to explore sometimes.

jasonlotito 4y ago

> I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out. I have had many of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods/AirPods Pro/AirPods Max w/ an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook since AirPods came out. I now use a Bose headset. It works. My AirPod devices do not.

robomartin 4y ago

> 1. Robocalls 2. Robocalls 3. Robocalls 4. Robocalls 5. Robocalls I have always thought that a simple --and likely very effective-- way to combat robocalls is to charge a nominal fee for all calls not in your address book. That fee could be $1 or more. It really doesn't matter how much other than having to be enough to be costly for those making unwelcome calls. The charge is levied both ways. If someone you don't know calls you, they pay $1. If you call them back, you pay them $1. The phone company handles this, of course. An alternative is that the charge is registered to their account and credited if you call them back. Being that billing is monthly, the net effect is that no money exchanges hands unless calls are not returned. If you did not respond, the next time the same number calls you the charge is increased by a nominal amount, say, 25%. Oh, yes, of course, the money goes to you, minus a, say 30% fee to the phone company. This accounting happens at the end of the month, not call-by-call. If someone wants to make a million unsolicited calls, it's going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of that money will go to the people they are spamming because they will not return the calls. Anyone in your address book is exempt from these transactions. Without diving deeper, this seems like a simple, clean and perhaps even elegant way to deal with the issue. Let the free market do it. If spammers want to give you hundreds of dollars per month just to make your phone ring, so be it. Yes, of course, there could be an incentive there for the phone company because, in the aggregate, that 30% might add-up to a nice pile of money. I'm sure there's a creative way to manage that. Perhaps something like a metric based on that income that penalizes them for not doing a better job of filtering the calls. This is where detailed analysis of the proposal is necessary.

progman32 4y ago
I don't understand why a scammer wouldn't just add the number to their address book before calling. Also as an individual this would be kinda scary. Not to mention the fact I have to share my private address book, but also if my friend forgets to add me I can randomly have to pay?
tristor 4y ago
> Without diving deeper, this seems like a simple, clean and perhaps even elegant way to deal with the issue. I like your idea in theory. In practice, many of the calls are originating from countries which would not comply with any regulatory framework requiring this, and are in many cases intentionally complicit in scamming. Additionally, it would require telcos to know every number in your address book, something I think is frankly none of their business.

mtmail 4y ago

The US situation is fascinating. I got 5 calls this years and 3 were my bank (callcenter, real human) I didn't want to talk to. No spam-block or similar software on my phone. I checked and I have 16 phone numbers blocked total on the phone, that must have been collected over 8-10 years. Germany.

filoleg 4y ago

> I've been all over the world, and it is straight up fucked how bad this issue is in the US and it's not like this elsewhere. Not trying to defend US or its telecoms here, but I think it has more to do with scammers trying to maximize for profit. Just like with malware heavily targeting Windows instead of macOS/Linux, or some apps prioritizing iOS instead of Android (by either launching as iOS-only and then introducing an Android version later, or just not holding up the quality and polish of the iOS version on Android). It isn't because Windows is inherently more insecure, and not because Android is a worse platform. It is simply because it makes sense moneywise. Why would a scammer focus on targeting low-disposable-income countries, if they, on average, can extract as much money from one US person as they would have to from 10-15 people in Phillipines. For scammers, it seems to be simply more profitable and efficient to target US residents.

aikendrum 4y ago
This is nothing to do with low or high income countries. Europe exists. I've lived (and had local phones) in Ireland, Germany and the UK. I've never had a spam call. I've had less than 10 spam texts ever. The US (from an outsider perspective) just doesn't seem to enforce consumer protections in general.
zinekeller 4y ago
> Why would a scammer focus on targeting low-disposable-income countries, if they, on average, can extract as much money from one US person as they would have to from 10-15 people in Phillipines. I don't think anyone disputes this, but apart from Canada (which has a largely similar telco structure) no other developed country has this plague of undesirable robocalls. You could probably net a similar payout in the UK or Germany but as far as I'm aware there isn't a robocall problem in Europe (and the only problem that is remotely telephone-related is those scare scams where a malicious ad displays a number to be called, not the other way around).
dfxm12 4y ago
Are you implying US is the only non-low-disposable-income country? lol. This isn't a problem in say, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, etc., as it is in the US. Also, the most spammed country appears to be Brazil, and it is far from the top of the disposable income lists. Many among the most spammed countries don't register on the top disposable income lists. There's something else at play here. Likely legislation/regulation. Spam info: https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights-top-20-countries-affected-by-spam-calls-in-2020-2 https://www.truecaller.com/blog/insights/truecaller-insights... Disposable income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

knaekhoved 4y ago

> I have never had any of the issues described in this article and I've been using AirPods w/ an iPhone and a MacBook since AirPods came out I bought airpods day 1 and I've had every single issue described in the article. Carplay is unreliable. Airpods are unreliable. As apple hardware steadily improves, apple software steadily degrades.

klooney 4y ago

I got a Pixel phone and spam calls have almost disappeared (1 a month). They seem to be doing something around extra screening that's pretty good and useful.

daggersandscars 4y ago
If you're using a non-Pixel Android phone, you may be able to get the same benefits by switching from your manufacturer's Phone app to Google's. Doing this on a Samsung S22 Ultra took me from tons of spam calls to none.
- creeble 4y ago
  Where does one find this magical app? I see lots of "phone" apps in Play Store, but I can't identify one specifically from Google.

adriand 4y ago

> I have never had any of the issues described in this article Really? Because a telephone call is, by definition, between at least two people. And even if you have your shit sorted out, I find it surprising that every one of your contacts does too. Because although I, too, generally have the process down pat (it's true: it's crazy there needs to be a process around this now), a lot of the people I talk to sure don't.

BeetleB 4y ago
Can echo GP. Simply have not had this been a problem for me. I call. Other party picks up. We start talking.

spookthesunset 4y ago

> American telcos make money off letting scammers operating boiler rooms in India steal money from your grandparents, so they're happy to utterly destroy any utility that a phone has. Not sure how telcos profit off scammers. Especially since I would imagine many times their payments are fraudulent. If anything these scammers waste the telco’s time too. This problem clearly isn’t getting fixed but I feel like saying “telcos make bank off scammers” is just too easy of a reason. There has to be some underlying reason this is a hard problem to solve.

ralph84 4y ago
The telco of the user who places the call pays the telco of the user who answers the call. Every scam call that’s actually answered is money in the pocket of the telco that serves the scam victim.

armchairhacker 4y ago

> It's gotten so bad I just don't answer my phone unless it's a call from someone I know I have my phone set to silence calls unless they are in my contacts list. I tell people this whenever I give out my phone number. Honestly I think this should be the norm. There's no reason for a random stranger to need to call you, if they want to reach out they can text or email, and I can't imagine many urgent situations where they can't text, can't forward the message through anyone in my contacts, and can't directly get the authorities to contact me. The only exception is automated phone calls (e.g. call from a random number for an interview or to confirm 2FA where I can't do SMS), in which case I have to temporarily disable silencing calls. But systems where you get called once from a random number and can't call back are really awful for other reasons...

res0nat0r 4y ago
I get tons of spam calls and texts, but I really never see any of them anymore. I'm on Android and Googles distributed spam detection is really working great. I'll get a notice sometimes that I got a txt moved to spam but most of the time I never see these, and it seems to also block all robocalls too and they only go straight to voicemail. I probably have 15 voicemails right now I never knew came through because they're junk and auto-blocked.
ipython 4y ago
That worked until my son was hit by a car, and my wife in her shock had no idea where her phone was. I’m still to this day guilty that I didn’t pick up the phone the first time it rang. The truth is that this problem will kill the telephone system and honestly if this is how the telcos treat it, it deserves to die.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  What did you have to feel guilty about? You could have done something for your son, remotely, that wasn't already being done?
  - stonogo 4y ago

bbarn 4y ago

I get the same issues I did in the US here in Iceland, fwiw. I get the added bonus of no longer being able to use many voice activated features because names aren't phonetically pronounced or simply have characters that aren't recognized by CarPlay. "Call Þórunn mobile." "I don't have a Thorin." "Call Porun mobile" "I don't have a porun".

01acheru 4y ago
I had to call my mom "Mamma" in every possible field for Siri to call her when I say "Hey Siri call mamma" (I'm Italian but my phone is in English). Before that she was only "mamma" as first name but I had other "mamma zoe", "mamma ale", "mamma gio" and Siri always wanted to call "mamma zoe" when I said "Hey Siri call mamma". After filling some fields of my mamma she started asking "Who would you like to call?" and started saying all mammas in my phone book, but when I said "mamma mamma" she started calling a random one or not getting it. Now that I have my Mamma (first name) Mamma (middle name) Mamma (last name) of company Mamma nicknamed Mamma with email mamma@mamma it works... go figure!
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  I think I have a solution for you, and it's going to be a mother.
mathieuh 4y ago
You can give contacts nicknames and Siri will recognise that instead of their main name. So if you set Þórunn's nickname to be "thorin" Siri will be able to recognise it. Basically just go through your contacts and give them all nicknames that are English phonetic spellings of their real name.
bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
Not that you should have to do this, but you can tell Siri (using your own voice) how to pronounce your contacts’ names. She’ll transcribe it into IPA or something.
knicholes 4y ago

barbazoo 4y ago

Not to jinx it but I haven't gotten any robocalls recently. I'm in Canada and I wonder if the regulations the CRTC introduced around STIR/SHAKEN might have made a difference already?!

poxrud 4y ago
I'm also in Canada and get about 5 scam calls per day.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  That sucks. Maybe I'm just lucky then. Possibly it depends on the carrier?

binkHN 4y ago

My Pixel phone has largely solved this for me. The built-in Call Screening is stellar and I don’t get bothered by robocalls much anymore because of how well the phone handles these.

david_arcos 4y ago
Same here! "Call Screening" killed all the robocalls, or potential robocalls.
JoshTriplett 4y ago
Likewise. Half the spammers hang up the moment I activate call screening, the other half (probably automated) keep talking and then I hit the spam button. All the (marginal) benefit of saying "take me off your spam list", far less trouble.