Truecaller on iPhone has never been as seamless as it is on Android. Due to privacy and accessibility issues, the app’s most popular feature – Caller ID – never worked on the app. Last year, Truecaller released an update to make the app work better with iPhones, but it also added an extra step where users need to interact with Siri to identify the caller. However, that’s about to change now. Truecaller co-founder and CEO Alan Mamedi has confirmed that with the new iOS 18 upgrade, Truecaller will finally work on iPhones as it should.

“From the iOS 18 feature release documentation 🙂 Soon we expect people to say “Truecaller finally works on iPhone”. Even though it has worked pretty well over the past 2 years, this time it will be exactly as you expect from Truecaller, end to end,” Mamedy wrote in a post on X.

Truecaller CEO has also shared screenshots of iOS 18 release documentation, which shows that iPhones will now have a live caller ID lookup feature. “The new APIs allow developers like Truecaller to retrieve information from their servers and provide live caller ID for incoming calls in a way that preserves privacy,” the note reads. Privacy has been a major issue surrounding Truecaller, especially after 2022, when an investigation by The Caravan alleged that Truecaller included information collected without user consent. Truecaller denied these claims, saying that the investigation was flawed and based on incorrect data. The company strongly denied any wrongdoing.

On the other hand, iPhone users are quite happy with the new update coming in iOS 18. “Eagerly waiting for this,” says a user on X. Another says, “1.5 billion iPhone users thank you.”

Nami Zaringhalam, co-founder of Truecaller, also wrote on X: “It’s been 9 years of hard work, and a certain amount of trust lost along the way. But soon everyone will be able to experience smartphones as we always knew them, safe and reliable”.

Truecaller has limited functionality on iPhone due to Apple’s strict iOS restrictions on privacy and security. These limitations have prevented third-party apps like Truecaller from accessing and interacting with incoming calls and SMS in real-time. Unlike Android, iOS does not allow apps to access the phone’s call log, which prevents Truecaller from automatically identifying and flagging spam calls. Additionally, currently, Truecaller on iPhone cannot scan SMS or call logs to identify unknown numbers. Users must manually search for unknown numbers within the app after a call.

Although Truecaller offers limited caller ID functionality on iPhone, users must enable the app under the “Call blocking and identification” option in the phone’s settings. Even after enabling it, the app can only display caller ID based on its existing database and cannot dynamically identify incoming calls as effectively as it does on Android. Furthermore, iOS restricts how many apps can run in the background, making it difficult for Truecaller to perform real-time tasks like identifying calls unless the app is open.