By Glenn Fleishman

January 12, 2026 8:30 AM PT

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Step up blocking unwanted calls and texts

I came across two seemingly unrelated pieces of news recently that I am tying together as the theme of this column.

First, the heartbreaking garbage information that senior citizens may receive as many as 50 calls a day from salespeople trying to get them to reveal enough personal data that it can be used to commit fraud or identity theft, including charging Medicare for unneeded care or supplies or never-performed procedures.

Second, a wildly varying set of statistics about the percentage of iPhone owners who have upgraded to iOS 26. Is it 15%, 26%, 55%, or far more? We don’t know. But it appears to be far less adoption this far out than updates to iOS 18 a year ago. Blame Liquid Glass, or user exhaustion, or the amount of unused storage required.

The practical combination is that tools introduced in the 26 releases for Phone and Messages, particularly useful on an iPhone, are either not being used or could be used better.

Apple stepped up to the plate on overhauling and improving the way that unwanted and full-on spam messages are identified and categorized, and can be blocked. Let’s look at how you could configure your phone—and that of people you love—to better lock out the creepo fraudsters.

Take a look at updated Phone settings

In that Times Medicare scam article, one senior explained to the reporter why he answers every call:

His family can’t set the phone to allow calls only from preapproved numbers, because that would filter out some medical calls. And changing his phone number seems unfeasible, given that every legitimate contact would have to be notified.

“I’m counting the days until open enrollment ends,” Ms. Kurutz said.

With iOS 26, there’s a lot more that can be done, even by a user who isn’t a smartphone expert. Most of the actions that can be taken are as complex as answering a call or not much more so. The benefits of acting on them should be enough to reinforce behavior.

The most incredible thing you can enable for yourself or someone else right away is the Screen Unknown Callers feature in the Settings app in Apps: Phone. To balance the need to get calls from unknown parties while also avoiding fraud, enable Ask Reason for Calling. Now, any incoming call that isn’t from a number in contacts requires the calling party to provide a little information, which is automatically transcribed and can be viewed in real time.

If it’s a scammer, it’s easy enough to tap Stop or just ignore. Any legitimate party will say who they are. Later, you can select the call and tap Report Spam. While some fraudsters rotate through numbers like mad, I think some industry and governmental measures in the United States to reduce the ability to fake incoming phone numbers have worked: If I don’t block a number immediately, I will often see calls from it over time until I do. I also find that looking up a number via a search engine leads me to a page with a huge number of spam reports, meaning that number should be blocked in any case.

People unfortunate enough to follow me on Bluesky know that I needed a lot of medical care in 2025—things are going great now!—and I enabled this iOS 26 feature in the summer on a beta release. I constantly had calls coming from healthcare workers, and the filtering feature meant I answered all of those (and then marked them as known callers), and was able to avoid dozens of others.

Because of the possible need to receive calls from unknown numbers, as above, you may want to leave Phone settings for Call Filtering: Unknown Callers turned off. If you don’t, then a screened or missed call from such a number requires tapping the Filter menu and choosing Unknown Callers to review it. At least a red dot appears over the Filter icon when there are messages in Unknown Callers or Spam to give a cue.

The other option in this section, Spam, should be turned on. It lets you rely on a carrier’s analysis from phone network traffic of call patterns or customer reports of spam. I also recommend installing the free version of the apps from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon that let you enable spam detection at the network level—that can block some calls even before they reach your phone.

The Call Blocking & Identification option is yet another way to amp up your iPhone’s intelligence about calls you (or a loved one) doesn’t want. Services from companies like Hiya receive spam reports constantly, and push out updates to a list that’s resident on your device that allows instant matching for potential or well-known spam numbers. Enabling one of these apps lets calls that pass through other layers of filtering display a label identifying a call you might not or surely don’t want. With a paid subscription, you can also show enhanced Caller ID information.

While Phone has received the biggest boost at fighting crud, and Messages is not where most of the Medicare and other kinds of relentless fraud come from, it’s still worth enabling in Settings in Apps: Messages: Screen Unknown Senders and Apps: Messages: Filter Spam. This lets you tap Filter: Unknown Senders or Filter Spam to review messages dropped into those buckets.

This takes more training. I find I have to tap Mark as Known or Not Spam on more messages than phone calls—most phone calls are correctly identified.

While I’m focused on iPhone here, call screening can be used in Phone for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS; some of the other screening options are slightly different or missing on macOS, but if you have them enabled on your iPhone, the effect is the same. It’s only if your iPhone were turned off that you would see a difference.

Liquid strength

Look, I know you have feelings about Liquid Glass—speaking to both upgraded people and non-upgraders—but I think there’s a value to overcoming that distaste and taking advantage of the good. Reducing the attention stolen away from you can be worth the cognitive load of adapting to a new interface.

For those who want extra help in sorting out iOS 26 and spam, you can check out three of my books:

• Take Control of FaceTime and Messages: This book, which includes full cover of the Phone app across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, will help you understand everything you can do to fight spam, scams, and many forms of harassment.
• Take Control of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26: This title will help any iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 user understand exactly what changed, instead of digging through settings and features in apps.
• Take Control of iPhone and iPad Basics: This edition, completely revised for iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, takes you through all the stuff that nobody ever tells you about an operating system, and that it’s just assumed you know. It’s great as a gift, too.

[Got a question for the column? You can email [email protected] or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]

[Glenn Fleishman is a printing and comics historian, Jeopardy champion, and serial Kickstarterer. His latest books are Six Centuries of Type & Printing (Aperiodical LLC) and How Comics Are Made (Andrews McMeel Publishing).]

By Dan Moren

January 12, 2026 7:52 AM PT

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Apple will base its foundation models on Google’s Gemini

Updated with the full text of Apple’s statement below.

According to a statement from Apple to CNBC, the company has officially selected Google as the technology partner for its foundation models. News that this deal was in the works had previously been reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman as far back as March of 2024.

The full implications of this deal aren’t yet known, but it’s likely to affect both Siri as well as other Apple Intelligence features, several of which were first announced in 2024 but have yet to actually ship. Gurman has also previously reported that those delayed Apple Intelligence features are likely to make their debut in iOS 26.4 this spring.

It’s unclear exactly where in the timeframe we are. Given that 26.3 is already in beta, and 26.4 is expected in a few months, it’s possible that work has long since started on this, even if it’s only being officially announced now.¹ Even with the leg-up provided by Google’s models, it seems unlikely the company could simply roll in that tech for a feature due out in short order.

It had previously been thought that Google’s Gemini would be offered as an option via Siri, in the same way that ChatGPT has been available for some time. That was tacitly confirmed by Apple software chief Craig Federighi who said at the company’s 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference, “we may look forward to doing integrations with different models like Google Gemini in the future.” But that deal never materialized—perhaps in part because the two companies were discussing this more substantive deal?

Either way, Google’s models are clearly a step up from Apple’s own endeavors thus far. The two companies also have a longstanding relationship over search in Safari, which makes this perhaps an unsurprising continuation of that. But as to whether it can help Apple dig itself out of the AI hole in which it’s found itself, well, we’ll find out soon enough.

Apple provided Six Colors with the full statement:

Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.

After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple’s industry-leading privacy standards.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @[email protected] or reach him by email at [email protected]. His latest novel, the sci-fi spy thriller The Armageddon Protocol, is out now.]

By Jason Snell

January 9, 2026 8:37 PM PT

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Some first thoughts about live immersive basketball

I got to watch the first quarter of tonight’s Lakers-Bucks game from the front row by the scorer’s table. Except when I was suspended in the air behind both baskets. Or maybe in a concourse watching people walk to their seats, or occasionally right out on the court for the national anthem or a Laker Girls performance.

In other words, I was watching it in my Vision Pro during the first live Apple Immersive sports broadcast.

The experience overall was surprisingly… normal? The video just played, and it felt like watching any other Apple immersive video on the Vision Pro, other than the fact that it was happening live.

Clearly, Apple and its partners (including Spectrum SportsNet, the Lakers’ TV partner) have learned a lot from their first couple of years experimenting with immersive video. Unlike previous sports highlight packages, the live broadcast kept switching camera angles to a minimum. For most of the quarter, I watched either from courtside or from behind each basket. I found that I got the hang of switching perspectives when flipping from one basket to the other pretty quickly, and the view of the action was definitely better behind the basket. But seeing action from center court, courtside, also felt like a rare treat.

Again, my real surprise was that it held up so well: The video was smooth, though when LeBron James zipped right past me, he did get a bit blurry. I’m sure the video quality wouldn’t hold up to close inspection if it were compared with a highly produced and massaged immersive documentary, but it didn’t feel any lower quality than Apple’s previous pro sports efforts, like its MLS, NBA, and Super Bowl highlight packages.

While I was able to tell the score by looking up at the scoreboard, Apple and Spectrum helpfully added a score graphic located… down on the floor, basically. It never got in the way of the action, but I could look down and quickly pick up the score and the time if I needed to.

It was novel to hear the play-by-play announcers, who were calling the game specifically for the immersive broadcast, tell me that Bucks coach Doc Rivers was “off to your left on your Vision Pro.” The announcers did a fine job, though I do wonder if it might be wise to have an option that turns off the announcers and lets you just experience the entire thing as a spectator.

If I have one real criticism of the broadcast, it’s that I’m not sure the sound was entirely right. It sounded good, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t exactly sound spatial. Sound is one of the ways your brain places you into a scene, and it felt like the sound I was hearing was not really attached to a spatial environment that matched what I was watching. There’s probably some more work to be done on that front.

Still, this was pretty awesome. Having been to a few women’s college basketball games this past year and sat in the front row, I’ve come to appreciate that when you can see the size of the players, hear them talking, and really get a sense of depth as the ball moves around the court, it’s a very different game than you get in a flat television image. Apple and Spectrum’s immersive NBA game had a similar effect. I’m ready to see more.

(Anyone with a Vision Pro should be able to watch the replay of the Lakers-Bucks game starting Sunday at 9 am Pacific via the NBA app.)

By Jason Snell

January 7, 2026 12:26 PM PT

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Will the iPhone Fold be a phone you open, or an iPad you close?

If many years-long rumors are true, 2026 will be the year when Apple’s long-gestating folding iPhone becomes a reality. But there are a lot of different approaches to folding phones out there, and there’s no guarantee that the folding iPhone you imagine is the one that Apple is imagining.

Leaks from Apple’s supply chain have begun to strongly suggest the shape and size of the product we’ll call, for lack of a better name, the iPhone Fold. And since it’s likely going to be nine months before anyone holds one of these things in their hands, this seems like as good a time as any to consider the story Apple is likely to tell when it’s selling this device.

Not your usual iPhone

First, a disclaimer: Nobody knows anything, except the people who do. We’re left to go on rumors and extrapolation. That said, many people have spent time doing the math required to extrapolate the shape of the new iPhone based on rumored specs, and even building a 3D printing template so you can build one and hold it in the real world.

If these mock-ups are real, this folding iPhone is not going to be what you may have pictured in your head: a modern iPhone, roughly the shape of an iPhone Pro, that folds open to reveal a larger screen inside.

Instead, Apple may be making a device that’s much wider and squatter than existing iPhones when it’s folded up. The mock-ups people are printing show a phone that’s squatter than an iPhone mini and wider than an iPhone Pro Max! If that shape is right, the iPhone Fold will look a bit more like a mini notebook when it’s folded, unlike any iPhone that has ever existed.

The shape makes sense, however, when you imagine what that phone looks like when it’s unfolded: a screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the shape of an old-school television and—more importantly—an old-school iPad. In fact, this rumored design would make the unfolded iPhone the shape of an iPad, just slightly smaller than the iPad mini. (The iPad mini’s screen is 8.3 inches when measured diagonally, while this screen is rumored to be 7.76 inches.)

Apple’s sales pitch?

Apple’s taking a real risk if the new folding iPhone doesn’t look like an iPhone. If people read it as looking weird or lesser in some way, that may turn them off—even if they were otherwise willing to buy a $2000+ phone. So why would they do it?

Here’s my guess at Apple’s thought process: If what you really want is an iPhone that looks like an iPhone, literally all the other iPhone models will deliver on that. The iPhone Fold is designed around what it provides when it’s unfolded. Yes, when it’s folded, it will work like a normal, albeit squat, iPhone. But it comes alive and is unique when it’s open.

When it’s open, it’s an iPad.

The battle between iOS and Android rages on in the smartphone world. Apple leads in some markets, Android in others. It’s a duopoly, and both companies are making a lot of money and wielding a lot of power based on their successes in that market. But in the tablet market, the truth is that the iPad is successful, and every other tablet out there is not. Not only in terms of sales and profits, but in terms of functionality.

Over the years, Google has rededicated itself multiple times to the idea that Android is going to be a better operating system for tablets, and that Android tablet apps are going to get better. And yet every time I use an Android tablet, I’m struck by just how awful the experience is compared to an iPad. Even now, most apps just feel like phone apps wearing clothes several sizes too large.

This is Apple’s big advantage when it comes to a phone that can open up to become something much larger: That larger thing can be an iPad, with apps that make sense in that size and shape. Apple has separated iOS and iPadOS, but they are essentially the same operating system, with some differentiated features based on what hardware is involved. Apple can bring as much or as little of iPadOS to the iPhone Fold experience as it wants to.

I’m not sure what will make the move across. Will full-on windowed multitasking be offered, or will Apple limit it to some basic tiling? Will the iPhone Fold be the first iPhone to support the Apple Pencil? Will the iPhone Fold drive an external display? It’s all for Apple to decide.

But after looking at these 3D-printed mock-ups and seeing a squat, paper-notepad-shaped iPhone that unfolds into a small iPad, it seems pretty clear to me: If this is the shape of the iPhone Fold to come, Apple is focusing on it being an iPad you can fold up and stick in your pocket, not as an iPhone that unfolds into two iPhones placed side by side.

[Thanks to Stephen Hackett for the photos.]

By Glenn Fleishman

January 5, 2026 12:13 PM PT

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Messages craves cloud syncing, even when you don’t want it

Apple added iCloud for Messages several years ago to solve the problem of presence.¹ Presence is a loose concept that describes where you are active at a given moment when some kind of alert or information should reach you. For instance, Apple’s awareness of which device you’re actively using should prevent an incoming phone call from ringing on several devices at once. (Spoiler: It does not.)

In the context of Messages, however, this could be important before a full synchronization existed. You could read your messages on potentially several devices: your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, home Mac, and laptop or work Mac. Most of us have at least two of those. When you read a message, reply to a conversation, or start a new one, where should the messages that comprise the conversation live?

Before iCloud for Messages, Apple generally synced messages among devices that were logged into the same iCloud account and were awake, among other parameters. If one was turned off or lacked an Internet connection, the sync might never happen, leaving an incomplete record across your communications.

When you enable Messages in iCloud on all of your devices, all incoming SMS, MMS, iMessage, and RCS messages are ostensibly received by at least one device, uniquely labeled, and encrypted for upload to your iCloud account, where other devices retrieve the updates.²

This leads to reader Phil’s peculiar situation. Phil uses Messages only via his iPad. He preferred not to sync his conversations via iCloud for his own reasons. He has two Macs; he uses the Messages app on neither of them.

However, he writes:

Recently, I accidentally invoked Messages on my Mac Mini, and, for a brief moment, I saw an excerpt from one of my Messages threads, which was created and executed on my iPad. I quickly turned off the Messages app on my Mac Mini (thinking I could avoid switching the storage of my Messages to iCloud).

Subsequently, I checked my iCloud storage, and I had Messages turned OFF for the cloud. What is going on here? If my messages were not residing in the cloud, how could the Mac Mini Messages app pick up some stuff from one of my Messages threads?

Where I think Phil is being bitten is the default synchronization that occurs among any devices logged into the same iCloud account, whether or not Messages in iCloud is enabled. Some aspects of this can be disabled; other parts of the process require logging out of Messages entirely.

Here’s what you can check using iOS 26/iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 locations and labels:

• Disable Messages in iCloud: Ensure you aren’t syncing via iCloud. Go to Settings/System Settings: Account Name: iCloud: Messages and disable “Use on this iPhone/iPad/Mac.”
• Disable other devices: On an iPhone, go to Settings: Apps: Messages: Text Message Forwarding and disable other devices.
• Disable accounts for incoming iMessage: On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings: Apps: Messages: Send & Receive; on a Mac, go to Messages: Settings: iMessage. Disable the accounts you don’t want to receive messages from on a given device, which may be all addresses and phone numbers.
• Log out of Messages: The nuclear option is to disable Messages entirely on devices you don’t want to have any messages sync with. On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings: Apps: Messages: Send & Receive and tap the linked email after Apple Account at the bottom. Tap Sign Out. On a Mac, go to Messages: Settings: iMessage, and click Sign Out.

Did you know?

I wrote an entire book that covers Messages plus FaceTime and the highly overhauled and improved Phone app. It’s up to date for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe, and, yes, watchOS 26: Take Control of FaceTime and Messages.

[Got a question for the column? You can email [email protected] or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]

[Glenn Fleishman is a printing and comics historian, Jeopardy champion, and serial Kickstarterer. His latest books are Six Centuries of Type & Printing (Aperiodical LLC) and How Comics Are Made (Andrews McMeel Publishing).]