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Comment by WestCoastJustin | Hacker News Reader

I just put my iphone on "do not disturb" full-time and use my favourites list to only allow calls though (from a selected list). People who double call are also allowed through. Then you are not constantly distracted by notifications, emails, texts, spam calls [1]. My thinking is, my phone should serve me, not the other way around, so I only check when I'm not focused on something else. Personally, I find useless notifications way worse than calls.

[1] https://www.iphonelife.com/blog/32671/tip-day-how-let-favori...

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I want to do this, but only for calls. All other notifications should happen normally. It annoys me that iOS doesn't support that though, it's all or nothing.

Custom ringtone that is silent and individual ring tones for the select few contacts?

That is genius!

Well you know us HN crowd...

Wonder if you could do a no vibration pattern also, I haven't turn my ring tone on in like 10 years.

Yea, Crazy Frog "The Annoying Thing" permanently turned me off to ring tones.

I really like my Nokia 6 except I hate that you cannot disable just vibrations easily. and also that there is a high minimum volume for all sounds, sometimes at night I use earphones as speakers.

I've done this since the original iPhone first started to support custom ringtones. I used a quiet passage from a recording of Beethoven's 7th.

Why Apple doesn't include a silent ringtone -- a feature found on pretty much every 'feature phone' I've ever seen or used -- is just one of life's dumb mysteries.

Probably because they were too cheap to pay the licensing fees.

For silence...?

Take your pick, ask for a license, see how far you get:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_silent_musical_composi...

I'm pretty sure they could afford to hire a composer for an original silent composition and a recording session to go along with it.

Surprised you didn't use 4'33".

Exactly only for calls... text is my main form of communication. I want only calls from those I let ring my phone do so and all others go to voicemail.

I hope Apple updates DND with more options like DND for calls only.

This approach comes pretty close to solving the problem, but a couple issues are dealbreakers for me:

1) It mutes all notifications, not just non-whitelisted calls. As much as I hate notification overload, I do want a select few to come through.

2) I want a discoverable way for non-whitelisted callers to be able to break through (not everyone will know to call multiple times to break through).

I'm working on an app that addresses those -- email me if you're interested (see my profile).

re #2: They can leave a voicemail; I'll listen to it and call back if necessary.

Going back and listening to voicemails of spam is more time consuming than just answering it at the time it comes in.

At the moment, the percentage of spam calls that bother to leave a message is low enough that it seems to work out. I also don't have to worry about the impoliteness of hanging up when it's a live human on the other end, and can time-shift the annoyance to when I'm not in the middle of something.

I wish I could ban the hundreds of 2-4 second voicemails I get a week. actually ban the number too.

Hmmm, as interrupting to answer at the time has the additional overhead of task/context switching, I'd say it's more.

If you just switch to/from the voicemail context once for 10 messages, the cost is only 10% of the cost for real-time answering.

Usually works well, but when you get caught in a cycle of always missing each other it sucks. Usually this is a business or similar where they call and are making a bunch of calls, so by the time I call back they are on the line with someone else.

We have POTS at home and work with a regular digital answerphone set to "speaker" ("always answer").

So, all calls get answered by the answerphone, most spam callers hangup as soon as the message starts.

Genuine callers start to give a message and you can pick up if you want to handle the call immediately. If someone needs to "break through" then they can say "hi, it's X, can you pick up please".

Works fantastically.

I would love my mobile to work the same way.

Not quite the same thing, but I have my mobile network set up to forward every call to a Twilio number which just states that my number doesn't accept calls. It sends me an SMS so I know someone tried to. It's great. People who do need to call me then will just use FaceTime Audio or WhatsApp calls.

Interesting. Do you state FaceTime/WhatsApp in the twilio message?

Nope, don't want to encourage it.

That seems really obnoxious for anyone that has your number. Do you just not give your number out?

Because spam calls don't occur because you gave your number out, but because the spammers either farm your number from a "partner" or iterate through numbers.

That’s one class. Another class is if the number was in a credit application or marketing form, then got resold or data-breached.

I only put burner numbers on forms. They start to get called about 90 - 180 days later. Not all, but enough you don’t want to give your cell out.

I avoid giving it out wherever possible. Some forms require phone numbers, in which case I generally try to enter an obviously-incorrect number.

I like this idea.

I've wanted a whitelist only setting for a very long time... and I have also resorted to using the iPhones DND feature but instead of favorites I just use contacts.

Havn't heard from the fake CRA, chinese immigration or duct cleaners for ages... I do still get text messages so I'm not sure what people are talking about by 'all or nothing' ...

As far as I can tell, the only downside is anyone in my contact list can wake me up at 4am...

This still lets people on that list wake you up after hours unless you take manual action.

I believe apple has a new call fitering API, but of course you don't have a way of really knowing what apps do with their permissions.

Apple should give you the ability to firewall apps from any net access.

Yeah, in my case that is what I want. There is only a handful of family that can get through. But, if they are calling at 3am, it is very likely an emergency. If this becomes a problem, I'd just ask them not to call at 3am. I haven't had any issues though.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/callkit/cxcalldire...

Single number at a time though. Useless for spammers that use random spoofed numbers. Not sure what sort of performance problems you'd hit by adding 10M numbers per area code. It's probably a hashset underneath, so maybe none...?

I was so annoyed by spam calls that I called my carrier and asked if I could block Texas and Florida.

Apparently you cannot.

The Hiya app lets you block calls that start with a particular string. It looks like the app allows for blocking just an area code. The only downside is that numbers being blocked by Hiya will sometimes start to ring for like a quarter of a second before the blocking takes effect - still better than having them ring through. I have the area code and exchange for both of the numbers that ring to my phone automatically blocked in Hiya (so, first six numbers) and it makes a big difference. My LG G7 has a call blocking feature, as well, but trying to block only the initial string of numbers for the area code and exchange didn't work. I'd recommend Hiya.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.webascende...

From the looks of screenshots from the iOS app, it looks like this app doesn't do this.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hiya-caller-id-spam-blocker/...

The thing that pisses me off is that the numbers are either faked or stolen. The people actually making the call on those numbers need to be arrested and charged with a felony. I don't care if they are some low level telemarketing drone. They are already scammers and are committing hundreds of felonies a day. Put them in prison.

Personal habit that's worked for me for years: turn off all data when I go to bed - only calls and sms can wake me up (of course this works if you don't use sms as a regular communication medium)

I end up syncing in the morning when I turn Wi-Fi back on

I love the DnD feature of Android but I've noticed that if someone persists they still get through. A feature I assume.

This is a setting. Go to settings and search for "repeat" and disable "Allow repeat callers".

I've been getting a lot of spam calls where they call, immediately hang up, and then call back from the same number. I assume it's to get around do not disturb.

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