Five of the six characters in the word “iPhone” refer to the phone feature, but the phone is easily the least important part of my iPhone. Thanks to email and text messages, I make and receive cell phone calls far less today than I did years ago. Phone calls can be important, and thus even though I have my iPhone configured so that almost no apps are allowed to play a sound during a notification, I still allow my iPhone to ring when a call comes in. If it is a call from my wife, a colleague, or someone else important, I want to hear the ring. But because my iPhone makes noise so infrequently, when I receive a nuisance call from a telemarketer or a robo-call, I am far more annoyed than when I receive a spam email. Fortunately, Apple recently made it possible for apps to automatically block phone calls. Since early January, I’ve been using a free app that AT&T provides to its customers called AT&T Call Protect. (If you are not an AT&T customer, there are similar apps available such as Hiya.) After using this app for over two months, I can enthusiastically recommend it because it does a fine job of blocking, or at least warning of, nuisance calls.
Blocking Calls
The best part of this app is that it automatically blocks calls from entities that it believes to be a nuisance or likely fraudsters. The Call Protect app uses Hiya’s list of known phone numbers to block. When a call is automatically blocked, you never even know that the call occurred. Your phone doesn’t ring; the call just doesn’t come through. However, you can go back and look at the call log in the app to see when calls were blocked.
I see that in late February, there was a week when I received seven calls. Two of the were from real people who I wanted to talk to. Five of them were automatically blocked and never bothered me.
You can tap on an entry in the call log to get more information on the blocked call. If it turns out that it was someone who you wanted to talk to, you can unblock the number so that it won’t be blocked in the future. But over the last two months, this app has never blocked a call from a number that I would consider to be legitimate.
Call Warnings
If all that the app did was block known fraudulent calls, that would be enough for me to recommend the app. But even better, if there is a call that the app thinks that you probably don’t want but isn’t as sure, the call is allowed to ring, but you are given a warning. Instead of just seeing the phone number that is calling you, this app gives you some information on why you probably don’t want to answer the call, such as labeling the caller as a telemarketer or suspected spam.
As annoying as it is to get a call on my iPhone from a telemarketer, at least with this app I can know to decline the call immediately.
Temporary Call Block
I haven’t used this feature, but I see that the app also offers a Temporary Call Block feature. AT&T says: “Temporary Call Block lets you manually block unwanted calls for 30 days. Use the AT&T Call Protect app to select the callers you want to block. These numbers can be renewed for continued blocking.”
Fortunately, I don’t have a need for this feature in my life. If you do, that is another reason to use this app.
[UPDATE: PRIVACY
A reader wrote in to note that this app uploads numbers in your iPhone’s Contacts to Hiya. This is so that the numbers can be added to a white list of phone numbers that are known legitimate numbers. You can get more information on the privacy implications of Hiya in this post by Glenn Fleishman of Macworld. This seems reasonable to me, but consider this before you use this app.]
Conclusion
AT&T Call Protect works great. It blocks calls from entities that you never want to talk to, warns when you probably don’t want to answer the phone, and gives you a log so that you can see exactly what it is doing. I recommend that you use the app.
Click here to get AT&T Call Protect (free): 
I sometimes save repeat telemarketer numbers to my contacts as “spam” or “telemarketer.” If it uploads my contacts, it might be adding these to the white list.
It doesn’t upload your contacts unless you specifically allow it to when it asks for your permission. I said No. So the question is, is it designed to allow in all calls from your contacts and to block all calls not in your contacts? If so, then it’s not very useful for people who care about their privacy.
And we can trust AT&T not to abuse our contact lists?
AT&T, as well as other telcos could easily stop the spoofed calls with little effort. All they need to do is after the call reaches the cell phone, is ping the displayed number for a response. If the ping comes back that that number is live and is the caller then they can allow the call to be completed. If the number doesn’t line up with the ping then they would know the call is a spoofed number and is either dropped or noted to the target phone.
Oddly enough, I never received any spam calls until the day AFTER I downloaded this app. Three in one day! Is that a coincidence??
App does not work for me. On iPhone X with latest update. App is up to date. Worked for about a month then stopped logging or blocking calls. Tried uninstalling/reinstalling but same result. Does not work. Reviewed countless AT&T user forums without finding a solution. ANY HELP FOR FIX OR SUGGESTIONS on alternate free apps to use are appreciated 🙏
Is AT&T Call Block for just cell phones or home landline phones too?
Cell phones.
-Jeff
The app is saving the calls I get into my contacts under either Suspected Spam or Telemarketer. Why is this and how can I stop it?
that’s my concern too. I have over 700 saved “telemarketers” in my contact list. what the resolution? Should i delete these contacts?
I’ve had the app (actually, the premium version, Call Protect Plus) for close to six months. At first I was impressed with the way it seemed to “catch” spam-type calls, although it never seemed to “block” them the way I wanted it to–that is, it still displayed the call on the lock-screen, with a warning indicating it was a potential fraud, telemarketer, etc. I would have preferred it to just block all such calls and display NOTHING. Still, that was OK. But lately, for the last month, its usefulness has declined to near zero: now it doesn’t block ANY calls, or even warn about them; just lets them ring through, while displaying a “name” for the person calling. The name is apparently obtained from a database acquired by AT&T–an OLD database, perhaps. Or, more likely, the names are correct for the number, but since robocallers/scammers/spammers use spoofing to disguise their number as a legitimate number, AT&T is fooled in the same way as I might be, and applies the legitimate name to the spoofed call. I would think that AT&T (who after all, is THE PHONE COMPANY) would be able to detect that a call is spoofed, but apparently not. So, that being the case, what good is the product? Every day I find myself having to manually block phony numbers that Call “Protect” let through. Might as well cancel the $3/month subscription, and delete the (pretty much) useless app.
I just use the free non-premium version, but like you I find that it doesn’t seem to do anything anymore. I’m not sure why.
-Jeff
I like this app. It has captured quite a few nuisance calls and even allows me to report those annoying robo calls. Now I see a new type of caller. It comes in as UNKNOWN but there is no telephone number associated with it. I’m hoping that they are aware of it and will take the necessary steps to eliminate this new type of Unknown caller. Otherwise the Apple does exactly what I expected.
I installed this app yesterday. Today I still received three robot calls: one from card services, one trying to sell me a medical brace,
And another about fake student loans. So far I am less than satisfied.
This app well for me in early 2017. But lately it hasn’t been blocking any spam calls at all. I only get a few a week, but they do manage to get past this app.
-Jeff
I am an AT&T Prepaid customer and it seems like AT&T Call Protect is not available to prepaid customers, which is lame. Since I cannot use it, I found another Call Protect app, which does the basic job of blocking spam calls and showing Caller ID. I have been pretty pleased with it so far. For those who is unable to use AT&T’s Call Protect, you may want to use this app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-protect/id1357820531?mt=8.
Any way to block an entire area code? 678 from Altanta is nothing but trash. Constantly getting calls from there… trash.
I have had this app active for over a year and though it announces spam callers, telemarketers etc, it does permit them to buzz through, thereby interrupting me.
I have not signed up for the Plus feature and cannot comment on its effectiveness, but have to ask, “Why when I’m spending $300/month on service for several phones am I expected to pay MORE to make them usable? I’m disgusted by AT&T’s desire to profit off of what should be standard service.
It is getting to the point that I will just stop the phone portion altogether, or perhaps just cancel the service it has become so annoying.
Why hasn’t anyone called out the TYPO in this article…
“When a call is automatically blocked, you never eve know that the call occurred.”
I know its only a single letter, and we all make mistakes (lord knows I am the typo king), but…I am not writing a blog or forum either.
[Jeff responds: Thanks. Typo fixed!]
This app can be downloaded from Hiya directly in the app store, no need to go through ATT, but the reality is the APP doesn’t really work and ATT could fix this problem with very little effort, but they and the other cellular carriers charge for a blocking service, so it actually makes them money to have these scammy calls going through! Think about it, if no one gets a telemarketer/scam/spoofed call, then no one would need to spend the $3.99 a month on the premium “plus” service…and e all know there are a fair amount of suckers out there paying for the “plus” service!
ITS ALL BUSINESS folks!
The AT&T Call Protect app DOES NOT WORK! It will mark one out of 10 as “spam risk” or something of the sort.
I stopped answering any phone numbers that are not on my contact list. I might as well pull out the SIM card. What a nuisance!
I wish Apple would do something about this
Blocks important calls that are legitimate such as Your Doctor…hospital . Totally bummed and pissed
Yikes! That hasn’t happened to me. You can always open the app to see what was blocked. And there may be a way to avoid that, such as adding the number to your contacts?
-Jeff
How do you open the app to see what was blocked? I don’t see a called log I’m paying for the plus
The icon at the bottom left of the app is called Call Log. Just tap that.
-Jeff