Samsung Galaxy Note 7 To Ship With Hiya For Robocall, Spam Protection

As Samsung gears up to unveil its highly anticipated Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on Tuesday, a lot of speculation has been doing the rounds about its specifications and features, most of it focusing on the hardware of the flagship device. And now, we know that much like the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, the Galaxy Note 7 will also come with spam blocking functionality in the form of Hiya.

Split off from Whitepages, Hiya came into being as a way to protect phone users from robocalls and spam texts, and it does that by leveraging a data set that comprises of 600 million active mobile and landline numbers within the U.S. and a total of 1.5 billion around the world. The service also includes a spam button for users to easily report numbers they think are spam. Further, with its Whitepages history, Hiya also gives users the ability to search directly within the phone’s native dialer for nearby businesses.

According to data from the company, it screens 665 million calls globally every month, of which almost 35 million are classified as unwanted by its users. Spam on mobile phones, either as calls or messages, is a big problem, and in June 2015, the Federal Communication Commission in the U.S. allowed phone companies and mobile operators to block spam legally.

Alex Algard, Founder and CEO of Hiya, said: “Expanding our service to include Galaxy Note 7 users and further growing our footprint in the international arena gets us one step closer to providing the kind of phone experience that everyone with a smartphone deserves.”

Currently, no non-Samsung smartphones ship with this feature, except those from T-Mobile in the U.S., with which Hiya also has a partnership. For the other devices, the app is available on both the Android and iOS platforms.

Samsung is holding the launch event for the Galaxy Note 7 at 11 a.m. EDT in New York on Aug. 2, along with simultaneous events in London and Rio de Janeiro.