On the iPhone, TrueCaller receives a significant update, but using it costs money
TrueCaller is one of the most popular anti-spam apps on the market. The app has a database where anyone can look up a phone number and check if it has negative reviews from other users, alerting them to a potential scam, annoying or harassing commercial use, etc. It’s free to use, and you can also apply filters on Android or iPhone to block specific numbers.
In its free version, TrueCaller has a lot of useful features, although some require payment. Now, the app has just updated its iPhone app to bring a feature that Android users already enjoy to Apple phones.
With the new update, the iPhone app also includes real-time recognition of the phone number that is calling us and provides us with information on the screen if it recognizes the number in its database. In this way, from the moment the incoming call appears on the iPhone screen, we will be able to see the TrueCaller address with the label Spam or similar, in case it is a number that has been reported several times in the app. This is a great improvement, allowing us to avoid even having to answer the call or having to manually search for the number in their database afterwards to check if it has negative reviews or not.
TrueCaller may have introduced this feature on the iPhone now and not before because, with the release of iOS 18, Apple has included a feature called Live Caller ID Lookup. This is the technology that allows the phone to connect to a third-party server to check the data related to the incoming call.
Truecaller currently has over 2.6 million paid subscribers, of which only about 750,000 are on iOS. To take advantage of this live caller ID feature, as well as automatic spam blocking and other features like incognito mode, TrueCaller charges €3.99 per month, or €25.90 for an annual plan.
In iOS 18, Truecaller has also updated its interface so that the caller's name appears in bold above their number. Now, Truecaller is working on making photos appear on caller ID for iOS users.
The bad news is that this feature will be included in the subscription, so it will not be available to users on the free version. However, given the growing problem internationally due to the high level of scam calls and messages that citizens receive, it is possible that paying for these services will become more popular.