Mobile phones have become the most used thing in our society today. These devices are widely used and accepted in virtually all. From the most basic things at home to a lot more complex things in the industrial sector. In homes, mobile phones have gone a long way in helping parents with the process of educating toddlers. Helping college kids with assignments is actually a norm. Forwarding research works, tracking teams, and calculations in companies and organizations aren’t left out of the picture. Just to list the least processes these devices have aided in. However, to everything with pros, there are cons attached, and the mobile devices are not left out of this page. The damage recorded daily as a result of the distraction gotten from these devices is nothing to write home about. Most accidents today have been caused by texting or accepting mobile phone calls while driving. Since these cons have risen due to distractions from calls, it’s only ideal we look for possible ways to limit these damages. Apple’s iOS 11 and latter have been equipped with options to reduce these distractions. So whether you’re gaming, driving, or in a meeting, you don’t need to part ways with your focus because you need to pick a call. You can Auto-Answer and Auto-Reply to Phone Calls on Your iPhone with the following steps.
In this how-to guide, we will be covering for major sub-topics including;
- How to Auto-Answer Phone Calls on Your iPhone
- How to Auto-Reply Phone Calls on Your iPhone
- How to Set Custom Auto-Reply Texts
- How to determine your iOS Version and Upgrade.
How to Auto-Answer Phone Calls on Your iPhone
If you detest getting disturbed when working on one thing or the other and you don’t want to lose any caller, you just need to Auto-Answer Phone Calls. To automatically answer phone calls after it has rung for some seconds, do the following;
- Open your mobile phone’s “Settings”. You’ll find the gear icon among your apps list.
- Select “General”.
- Click on “Accessibility”.
- On the accessibility settings, tap on “Call Audio Routing”
- If you want to choose which device your calls are routed through, you can make this option here. Selecting “Bluetooth headset” would route every call to any Bluetooth device connected to your iPhone once a call is picked.
- Select the “Auto-Answer Calls”
- Tap the toggle beside “Auto-Answer Calls” to switch it to the ON position.
- Adjust the number below.
- The number there displays how many seconds you want the phone to ring before a call is automatically answered.
- Close your settings. Your iPhone should begin to automatically answer all inbound phone calls to the device.
If you can’t find this option on your iPhone, it is likely you’re running an iOS version lower than iOS 11. Check the last sub-heading on this article for how to verify the OS you’re running on as well as a tip on how you can upgrade your iPhone to iOS 11 or later.
Note that the default waiting time is 3 seconds but it can be easily adjusted. The aim of this waiting time is to allow you to reject a call or send the call to voicemail. However, if you can’t get the call from a particular caller at that time, you can auto-reply a call with a text message as explained below.
How to Auto-Reply Phone Calls on Your iPhone
So you’re in a position where you can’t get that incoming call meanwhile the caller is very important. Maybe, its long past working hours and this client keeps calling. Well, you don’t have to feel frustrated about the turn of events as your iPhone still got you covered. Yes, your mobile phone has a feature that can help you send a text message to the caller letting them know you are unavailable. This option is as easy as the “Slide to Answer” bar – LOL. Actually, it is the “Slide to Answer” bar that displays whenever you have an incoming call.
Once you swipe this bar, a pop-up menu serving several preset options like “I can’t talk right now” and “Can’t talk, but on my way!” displays. It also has an option for a custom text with the inscription “Custom…”.Tapping on any of these options would instantly reply to the caller with that specific text message. However, selecting the“Custom…” option will allow you to type the text to send.
You would agree with me that typing the same thing over and again can be a pain in the ass. So if you’re thinking of editing these texts to fit your choice of reply for an on-the-go response, the following guide would be of assistance.
How to Set Custom Auto-Reply Texts
There are three default auto-reply texts added to the iOS and they are really good. However, to me, they appear to be too rigid and straight to the point. If you’re also feeling this way, you may want to edit them to whatever suits you best. This can be done from within your device Settings.
- Open your Settingsapplication.
- Scroll down and select“Phone”.
- Tap on the“Respond with Text” option.
- You would find the three pre-set text messages included as default auto-replies.
- You can tap on any of these three messages to input your own auto-reply texts.
However, you cannot add more than three auto-reply texts as at this time but you can change those texts to whatever you feel comfortable with.
How to determine your iOS Version and Upgrade.
To determine the iOS version your device is running on is very easy.
- Simply open Settings.
- Scroll to the General settings option and select it.
- Tap on Software Update.
- Your iPhone should tell you if your software is up to date.
- If your OS version is below the available version for your device, you would see the option to download and install the latest update.
- Simply tap on “Download and Install”.
- The iOS should download.
- Follow prompts to install downloaded OS.
After the installation, your device should restart giving you the option to auto-Answer and Auto-Reply to Phone Calls on Your iPhone.