Callkit blocking behaviour is overridden in iOS 18

In iOS 18 if a number is registered with CallKit to be blocked, then if that number is also in contacts, then the number isn't blocked.

Have you filed a bug report on this and, if so, what's the bug number?

If a user has added a number to their contacts, then in all probability they might not want the number blocked, so this might seem reasonable behaviour. However the point is, this is new behaviour for CallKit in iOS 18, and its never been like this before going back several years to the very first release. Why suddenly change it now, after all these years, without notice nor documentation, and take away that option from the user, should for some reason, they want to block a number which is also in their contacts.

A few notes heres:

• We added new call block APIs as part of iOS 18, so it's possible this was actually an accidental side effect of implementing the new call blocking APIs.

• Users have multiple methods for blocking calls beyond the call directory extension. Manually adding the contact to the system level block list might work (I haven't tested this) but if it doesn't then "Focus" could also be used to block calls.

This is quite a disruptive change for apps using CallKit.

Why? All other issues aside, I'd expect this to be a fairly rare edge case. Is there a reason why this is particular issue for your users/use case?

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

It's a problem because people add known spammers to their contacts so as to identify them and not pick up the call.

So with this regression, all the known spammers that were added into users' contacts will be able to call users again.

Hi,

I'm experiencing this issue too and it has completely messed up the functioning of my app on iOS 18. Plus now that iOS 18 is live for the public, I'm getting complaints from my users, daily.

I've also filed a bug report for this (https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/feedback/15015052)

Please have the "Call Blocking & Identification" functionality back to how it was working on iOS 17.

Thanks