Apple Patent Hints at Plans to Let Siri Give Smart Responses to Unanswered Calls

An Apple patent application has surfaced that shows the company is exploring ways to make declining a call on an iPhone a more "pleasant experience" in the future.

According to the patent published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, the tech giant is reportedly working to make its digital assistant Siri to help provide the caller with a reason on why the call was rejected through a text message.

"An Apple patent application published for 'Intelligent Digital Assistant for Declining an Incoming Call' aims to fix the problem by having Siri or another digital assistant automatically work out why the call cannot be accepted," AppleInsider reported late on Thursday.

According to the patent application, the procedure starts when an incoming video or voice call is detected, thus, prompting the smart assistant to attempt to acquire as much data about the user's situation as possible.

"This can include the user's location data if the iPhone is in 'Do Not Disturb' or another operating mode or even data from third-party apps that are used for specific purposes - such as a fitness monitoring app detecting the user is in the middle of a workout," the report added.

The Cupertino-headquartered giant already offers a list of simple, generic responses that users can choose when a call comes in that they cannot or do not want to answer.

The "Do Not Disturb While Driving" feature introduced in iOS 11 Operating System (OS) can automatically alert a caller that the reason they are unavailable is because they are behind the wheel.