My pal Glenn Fleishman writes the Mac 911 column at Macworld, so occasionally when I run into a snag with my Mac or iOS devices, I shoot him a message with possible fodder for future articles. Today, he relays my frustrating attempt to block numbers from “Telemarketer Bastards.”
At some point I read that you could add spammy phone numbers to a single contact and block that contact (hence the entry in my Contacts for Telemarketer Bastards). However, that stopped working. Instead, whenever one of those numbers called my phone, I’d see Telemarketer Bastards as the Caller ID—which made it easy to decline the call and send them to voicemail.
(This is also one of my favorite features of the Apple Watch. I decline calls all the time via the watch without having to pick up the iPhone at all. Because unsolicited calls have become such a problem, I never answer the phone unless it’s a call from someone I know. Even answering a telemarketer call tells them you’re likely to pick up and will lead to more unwanted calls. Telemarketer bastards have ruined calling for everyone.)
But I don’t want even that step, since I’ve already identified those numbers as unwanted calls. Glenn explains that Apple blocks based on individual numbers, not contacts. So, I’ve since just blocked those individual numbers.
But it tickles me that “Telemarketer Bastards” made it into Macworld.
If you like the work I do, please consider signing up for my low-volume newsletter that I use to announce new projects, items, and giveaways that I think my readers would be interested in.
Jeff Carlson | Never Enough Coffee Creations 