The New York Times’s Brian Chen is a fan of Apple’s new robocall and text-filtering feature in iOS 26. To his credit, he also praises Android’s privacy tools, calling both timely. But when it comes to Apple’s new text-message filtering, he doesn’t hesitate:
“Apple users can activate the text-filtering tool, which includes the option to screen messages from unknown senders, inside the settings for the Messages app—and I recommend it.”
His analysis is half right. As I said two weeks ago, it is a nice but incomplete fix. But Brian’s next line speaks to a problem that the A2P industry is trying hard to solve:
“Though a spam filter for text messaging is a nice, overdue feature, it’s also a sad sign that our messaging apps are becoming as chaotic as email. But this was inevitable, because the surest way to reach someone is through the person’s cellphone, and scammers are well aware of that.”
Brian is saying what we all know and feel. The inbox has become cluttered, noisy, and increasingly untrustworthy. Our attention is under siege, and that’s a problem.
But Apple patched the problem; it didn’t fix the system. Fixing the noisy inbox will require cross-industry collaboration, and no lasting solution will be possible without Apple’s support.
When I first wrote about iOS 26, I said Apple would only reconsider its go-it-alone approach if consumers complained. So far, that feels like wishful thinking. And let’s be honest: Unless a truly timely, non-marketing message gets missed, that’s not going to happen. Equal treatment from Apple, for now, remains a distant desire.