iOS 16 SMS Filtering API supports more message categories

Apple’s iOS system provides APIs that allow third-party applications to detect and alert users to spam calls and text messages. With the launch of iOS 16, the SMS filtering API has also been updated to support more message categories.

As early as 2017, Apple launched the SMS filtering API in iOS 11, integrating the spam database application into Apple’s messaging application. This way, every time a user receives a message from a number marked as spam, it automatically goes to a separate spam inbox. In iOS 16, developers will be able to filter spam into more different categories.

In fact in iOS 14, in addition to spam, Apple has introduced two new different categories for spam: deals and promotions. For example, text messages with bank transaction reminders are placed in the transactions folder, while text messages with product and service offers are placed in the promotions folder.

And iOS 16 adds 12 new subcategories to the SMS filtering API, which are:

Trade

  • Finance
  • Reminder message
  • Order
  • Health
  • Public Service
  • Weather forecast
  • Operator
  • Award
  • Other

Promotions

  • Discount
  • Coupon
  • Other

Spam

Apple’s Messaging app recognizes the categories supported by SMS filtering apps installed on the device and displays only those categories to the user. For example, an app could filter text messages by only Financials and Orders in the Transactions category.

Apple notes that the SMS filtering app uses a local database to identify the type of information, so the app doesn’t need to upload the user’s information to the server.

Interestingly, Apple also has its own SMS filter built into iOS, but now it only works for users in Brazil and India, as these countries are heavily affected by SMS spam. With the rollout of iOS 16, some new SMS filtering subcategories will be available by default in India, but users in Brazil will only have deals, promotions, and spam categories.

Apple’s SMS filter is based on machine learning to identify whether a text message is a spam, and also identify which category it belongs to. There’s no word on when Apple will expand this feature to more countries, but developers can create apps for users based on the API.

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