iOS Contacts petty feature

When I first owned an iPhone, I was good at saving every number with an accurate name and ideally some relevant notes or a job title if possible. A few years ago, iOS added a new update that changed everything. Depending on their Apple ID info, if a user provides a name when texting, and many other factors I don’t fully understand, it can “suggest” a contact name for someone who isn’t in your contacts.

This person will show up as “Maybe: (their name)” or something similar. The ironic side effect of this feature is that I save fewer phone numbers than I used to. Why save when the suggested name is already there?

My tin foil hat theory is that this is a feature, not a bug, as it forces individual users to rely more heavily on iCloud. I’m probably wrong about this, but still, a fun thought exercise.

This got me thinking about the contacts app in iOS. What if there was a way to quickly see if someone has saved your phone number and an option to ask all of these people “why” simultaneously? Alternatively, you could just block them for being bad friends.

This level of visibility would likely be detrimental to many friendships, however, it’d force people to clean up their address books (I know I need to do this).

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