Spam calls are more or less of an issue depending on where you live. There are some regions, even on the same continent, where spam calls are an issue, and there are regions when they are not. However, if you do have a spam call drama in your life, you’ll be glad to hear that Apple is doing something about it. Or, at least it’s planning to… According to a patent filed by Apple, future iPhones (or iPhones running future versions of iOS) will be able to detect whether a call is spam or legit.

The patent is called “Detection of spoofed call information”. If a spam call is detected, the system would either display an alert or completely discard the call. You might be wondering how could a phone (software running on it) be able to detect whether a call is legit or not. Well, according to the patent filing, the phone would check against established, legitimate call parameters. It would then determine whether that call is valid or not. The patent implies that the iPhone would analyze the information being send over the call. This can include network equipment identifiers, server identifiers, as well as other factors it can take into consideration.

Apple is not reinventing the wheel here. At the Pixel 3 (and Pixel 3 XL) event last week, Google introduced the Call Screen feature. This enables Google Assistant to help filter out a spam call.

On the other hand, it’s important to notice that companies (and Apple especially) are filing lots of patents. Some might end up being commercially available to users, some are just left there pending. This might or might not become a feature on your future iPhone (or iOS update).