Handling Incoming Calls

When a call comes in to your iPhone, you answer it, right? What could be simpler? You'd be surprised. Your iPhone gives you quite a few options for dealing with that call, aside from just answering it. After all, you don't want to talk to everyone all the time, do you?

Note:
If you have a Verizon or Sprint cellular plan, remember that these providers use the CDMA cellular protocol, which is a monotasking system. This means, for example, that if you're on the phone, you can't surf the web or perform any data-related activities. Similarly, if you're surfing the web, you can't send calls and if a call comes in, your iPhone stops your web session to receive it. If you're on a non-CDMA network, such as AT&T, you can get simultaneous voice and data, but not using the LTE protocol. When you're on a call, your data connection falls back to HSPA+.

Silencing an incoming call

When you are in a situation where the ringing of a cell phone is inappropriate, bothersome, or just plain rude, you, of course, practice celliquette (that is, cell etiquette) and turn off your ringer. (On your iPhone, position the phone in portrait mode with the Home button at the bottom and then flick the Silent/Ring switch on the left side panel to the silent position.) However, we're merely human and we all forget to turn off our phone's ringer once in a while.

Your job in that situation is to grab your phone and answer it as quickly as possible. However, what if you're in a situation where answering the call is bad form? Or what if you'd prefer to delay answering the call until you can leave the room or get out of earshot? That's a stickier situation, for sure, but the iPhone designers have been there and they've come up with a simple solution: press either the Sleep/Wake button on the phone's top panel (again, assuming you have the phone in portrait mode with the Home button at the bottom) or one of the Volume buttons on the left side panel. Either of these actions stops your iPhone from ringing (or vibrating). The ringing is still going on (your caller hears it on her end), so you've still got the usual four rings to answer the call should you decide to.

Sending an incoming call directly to voicemail

Sometimes you just don't want to talk to someone. Whether that person is your sister calling to complain, an acquaintance who never seems to have anything to say, or someone who calls while you're indisposed, you might prefer to ignore the call.

That's not a problem on your iPhone because it gives you several ways to decline a call:

If the phone isn't locked, tap the red Decline button on the touchscreen.
If you're using the EarPods, squeeze and hold the center button for 2 seconds.
Press the Sleep/Wake button twice in quick succession.

Each of these methods sends the call directly to voicemail.

Note:
If you ignore a call, as with any phone, the caller will know that you've done so when voicemail kicks in before the normal four rings. If you don't want someone to know you're ignoring his or her call, press the Sleep/Wake button once to silence the ring. The caller still hears the standard four rings before the voicemail and will be none the wiser that you just didn't pick up your phone.

Replying with a message

In the previous section you learned how to send an unwanted call directly to voicemail. That's great for calls you want to ignore, but there are plenty of situations where you can't answer the phone, but you also don't want to ignore the caller. For example, if you're expecting a call but get dragged into a meeting in the meantime, it would be rude to still answer the call when it comes in, but if you just send the call to voicemail your caller might wonder what's going on. Similarly, you might be a bit late for an appointment and on your way there you see a call come in from the person you're meeting. Again, it might not be convenient to answer the call, but letting voicemail handle it might lead your caller to wonder if you're going to show up for the meeting.

iOS 6 feature gives you an easy way to handle these sticky phone situations. It's called Reply with Message and it enables you to simultaneously decline a call and send the caller a prefab text message. That way, you avoid a voice conversation (which, depending on your current situation, might be rude or inconvenient) but you give the caller some feedback.

By default, Reply with Message comes with three ready-to-send messages:

I'll call you later.
I'm on my way.
What's up?

Each of these is automatically preceded with "Can't talk right now...". There's also an option to send a custom message if none of these is quite right. Here's how to decline an incoming call and send the caller a text message:

When the call comes in, swipe up on the Options button (the Phone icon) that appears to the right of the Answer button. Your iPhone displays the options shown below.

Note:
You must have call display on your phone plan to see the Options button.
Tap Reply with Message. Your iPhone displays a button for each of the prefab text messages.
Tap the reply you want to send. If you want to send a different message, tap Custom, type your message, and then tap Send.

The caller sees User Busy in the Phone app and then receives a text message.

Setting a callback reminder

The Reply with Message feature is a handy trick to have up your iPhone sleeve, but it suffers from the same problem that plagues straight-up declining a call: If you want to talk to that person later, you have to remember to call back. In the previous version of iOS, my solution was to use the Reminders app to nudge myself in an hour (or whenever) to make the return call. In iOS 6, however, I don't need to perform that extra step because the Phone app has a new feature that lets you decline a call and automatically create a callback reminder. You can set up the reminder to fire in 1 hour or when you leave your current location.

If you're not all that fond of the default replies, you can forge your own. Tap Settings, tap Phone, tap Reply with Message, and then use the three text boxes to type your own messages.

Here's how to decline an incoming call and set a callback reminder:

When the call comes in, swipe up on the Options button (the Phone icon) that appears to the right of the Answer button. Your iPhone displays the declining a call options.
Tap Remind Me Later. Your iPhone displays the callback reminder options.
Tap the type of reminder you want to set.
- In 1 hour. Tap this option to set a time-based reminder.
- When I leave. Tap this option to set a location-based reminder.

Rather than declining all incoming calls, you might be in a situation where you want to decline all calls except for those from a particular person or group. A better way to handle this is to set up the Do Not Disturb feature to allow calls from just those people.

Turning off the call waiting feature

If you are already on a call and another one comes in, your iPhone springs into action and displays the person's name or number, as well as three options: Ignore, Hold Call + Answer, and End Call + Answer. (See the section about handling multiple calls later in this article for more info on these options.) This is part of your iPhone's call waiting feature, and it's great if you're expecting an important call or if you want to add the caller to a conference call that you've set up.

However, the rest of the time you might just find it annoying and intrusive (and anyone you put on hold or hang up on to take the new call probably finds it rude and insulting). In that case, you can turn off call waiting by following these steps:

On the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings app appears.
Tap Phone. The Phone screen appears.
Tap Call Waiting. The Call Waiting screen appears.
Tap the Call Waiting switch to Off. Your iPhone disables call waiting.

Forwarding calls to another number

What do you do about incoming calls if you can't use your iPhone for a while? For example, if you're going on a flight, you must either turn off your iPhone or put it in airplane mode so incoming calls won't go through. Similarly, if you have to return your iPhone to Apple for repairs or battery replacement, the phone won't be available if anyone tries to call you.

For these and other situations where your iPhone can't accept incoming calls, you can work around the problem by having your calls forwarded to another number, such as your work or home number. Here's how it's done:

On the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings app appears.
Tap Phone. The Phone screen appears.
Tap Call Forwarding. The Call Forwarding screen appears.
Tap the Call Forwarding switch to On. Your iPhone displays the Forwarding To screen.
Tap the phone number to use for the forwarded calls.
Tap Call Forwarding to return to the Call Forwarding screen. Figure below shows the Call Forwarding screen set up to forward calls. In the status bar at the top of the screen, note the little Phone icon with an arrow that appears to the right of the time to let you know that Call Forwarding is on.