New iPhone app tries to make telemarketing calls less intrusive

Nothing is more annoying than a telemarketer calling you on your iPhone. Now there is a free app to limit the pestering calls to a mere beep.

The Call Block app works by adding an extensive list of telemarketers to the user’s iPhone address book so that calls from telemarketers can be set to only ring a soft beep that the user can then ignore.

After the app is installed, it will ask the user if it can add three new contacts, each of which contains phone numbers for numerous known telemarketers. Call Block’s developers say they have culled thousands of telemarketers’ numbers.

The user then needs to look up the new contacts that were added and edit them by selecting the type of ringtone he or she wants the phone to sound when a call comes from a telemarketer on the list.

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Call Block recommends setting vibration to “none” and the ringtone to “Note,” which is a soft, single beep.

Users can add telemarketers that aren’t already on the Call Block list.

To do so, users open the app and tap on the text field to enter the phone number. Once typed in, users can hit “Report to H.Q.” to send the number to Call Block to have it added to the general list.

Users can also tap the image of a fist to have the app update their phone with the latest version of the list of blocked telemarketers.

The app isn’t perfect: The user may still get a call that sounds like it’s from a friend when in fact it’s a telemarketer that’s not on the list yet.

But as more users add telemarketers to the list, the app should be able to filter out most calls.

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