Popular caller ID app Truecaller has long put iPhone users at a disadvantage because it doesn't provide real-time caller information. This feature is something Android users have been enjoying for a while. Today, that changes as the company is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to iOS subscribers.
The company was able to implement this feature because Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, which allows third-party caller ID apps to securely call servers to retrieve information about callers. Notably, this is also the first major release from the Swedish company after co-founders Alan Mamedi and Nami Zaringaram stepped down from day-to-day operations in November 2024.
Currently, Truecaller has more than 2.6 million paid members, but only about 750,000 of them are on iOS. However, 40% of Truecaller's revenue comes from iOS subscriptions. The company also saw five times the premium conversation rate on iOS compared to Android, and an 80% increase in revenue from iPhone subscribers.
Given the importance of the iPhone to Truecaller's revenue, the company continues to develop its iOS app.
In 2022, Truecaller relaunched its iOS app to focus on improving spam detection as Apple allows more sets of numbers to be stored locally.
“Overall call distinguishability has improved. However, it is not enough as countries like India have large call activity and not all of it is available in offline databases. Nakul Kabra, Truecaller product director, told TechCrunch in an interview.
India also poses other challenges for the company, including the emergence of Calling Name Presentation (commonly referred to as CNAP) services designed to curb spam. The service is currently being rolled out by a local carrier and could eventually emerge as a competitor to Truecaller. .
Truecaller also updated its iOS app in 2023 to offer a live caller ID experience, but it included a step that required interaction with Siri and was not real-time.
Until iOS 18 was released, Truecaller had to rely on a limited locally stored dictionary of phone numbers on iOS.
To enable this new feature, Truecaller built a new server architecture and created a separate encrypted database for iOS alongside its existing large database for Android users. Apple's phone app sends encrypted requests to this database and gets encrypted responses. This response is decrypted only on the client (iPhone) and displays the caller ID in real time. This process is called “homomorphic encryption.” This appears when the computation uses encrypted data rather than decrypting it first, but the decryption is done on the client and the caller information matches the data stored on the server. Masu.
Kabra told TechCrunch that Truecaller has built a way to synchronize two databases and keep data in sync between them.
“Currently, there can be a slight delay as these requests are queued. Also, encryption takes a very long time and is very expensive… but it shouldn't be more than a few hours. ” he said. .
TechCrunch tested Live Caller ID under Truecaller's beta program last week and found that while the feature most of the time provides caller information in real-time, it can sometimes be missed.
Truecaller's premium tier on iOS starts at $9.99 per month per individual, or $74.99 per year. The company also offers a family plan on iOS starting at $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year, and a top-tier Gold subscription for $249 per year.
The user uses the iPhone[設定]>[アプリ]>[電話]>[通話のブロックと識別]You can enable the live caller ID lookup feature from .
iOS 18 also updates Truecaller's interface to display the caller's name in bold above the number. Truecaller is currently working on supporting images that appear in caller ID for iOS users.