Walt's Corner

I’m seeing a lot about iPhone beta testing, Re: prescreening calls, on Mastodon. Or maybe it’s part of an echo chamber. Either way, I’m seeing it in abundance.

If you are dead serious about the ultimate screening, lemme tell you what I do. I have not had to deal with a spammer since 2019

Part 1. By my choice/settings, phone is set to NOT alert me to any phone calls unless you are in my contact list. If it’s important, they’ll leave a message. If I feel like it, I’ll return it. To further assist in my introvert lifestyle, I go next level at night. I don’t get notifications from anyone or anything from 9PM to 7AM. Anything that happens overnight can wait until I’m good and ready to start my day. Even if it’s the apocalypse. That shit can wait too or kill me before I even know what’s up. I’m good either way.

Messages would like to send you notifications. Maybe. As long as they’re designated as a friend or family, sure. And we aint talking facebook friends either. If you’ve been to my house to eat my food, we real friends. But the time zone still applies. No notifications between 9PM and 7AM.

Messenger would like to send you notifications. Um… just those real family and friends. And during daylight hours.

Facebook would like to send you notifications. Nope.

Mona would like to send you notifications. Nope.

Mail would like to send you notifications. Nope.

Amazon would like to send you notifications. Nope.                                          

I’ll see there might be something new if I happen to be looking at the phone at the time and go check it out.

Word would like to send you notifications. WTF? Let me be crystal clear. There will never be a time in my life where Word will be allowed to send me a notification. Not in my life. Microsoft can fuck right off with that shit.

Voicemail greeting? Leave it the default “the person at nine… one… five…”

Using these settings, I have not dealt with a spam call in – I couldn’t tell you how long. Years.

Part 2 is having a separate personal work phone. That’s the number I give out to everyone at work both peers and clients. That’s the one I carry around at work. It gets shut off at 4PM and the weekend. My bizness…. Is my bizness, as Limp Bizkit would say. Yeah, I pimp with the Limp. And that takes me to my one big gripe about the iPhone. Give it a power button. Every workday I’ve got to go into settings>general>shut down. Deep down I think there has to be a way to put a shortcut on the Home Screen. But I’m also too lazy to research it. Yet.
Edit: my wife has shown me the witchcraftery that comes from holding the power-on and volume-up buttons at the same time. So my one big gripe is no longer.

It’s nice to be able to text with my customers and co-workers without using my own personal phone, but to maintain that severence you cannot have that personal work phone tied to your Apple ID Messenger service. Just text. Ya gotta green box it.

I don’t answer any calls that are labeled “spam risk.” When I do answer a regular call, I immediately respond with “<insert government office name> Retirement Services Officer, this line is unsecure, how may I help you?” Spammers immediately hang up. It’s like they don’t even want to talk to me! And that makes me feel good. Real good.

Voicemail greeting? Same as I answer this phone. Government office. Title. Unsecure. Don’t leave any classified information or PII. Trust me. They don’t leave messages.