Vision 3.1.0 and 3.1.1: A Second Pair of Ears for a Call on Speaker

Vision 3.1.0 for iPhone added a new screen, and 3.1.1 corrected what that screen says about itself. The screen is called Live Shield. It is a second pair of ears for a conversation you can already hear: a scam call on speaker, a voicemail you are playing back, or someone talking to you at the door. It listens, turns the speech into text on the phone, and tells you when it hears a tactic scammers rely on, along with the exact words it matched.

This post covers what it does, what it cannot do, what stays on your phone, and how to use it. The changelog has the App Store date for each release.

Vision 3.1.0

Live Shield takes the place of SMS Filtering in the tab bar at the bottom of the app. Open it, tap Start listening, allow the microphone and speech recognition when asked, and set the phone near the sound.

What it listens for

The phone turns what it hears into text and reads that text for the pressure tactics that show up in almost every scam call: a caller claiming to be a government agency, a demand for gift cards or a wire transfer, a request to install remote-access software, a threat, and coaching to keep the call secret. When it hears one, it names the tactic under the heading "What Vision heard" and shows the exact words it matched, in quotation marks, so you can judge for yourself whether the match is fair.

Above that list is a meter and a count of tactics to check. The meter rises with what it hears, but no single tactic, however many times it is repeated, can push it to the top. The strongest warning is reserved for combinations that legitimate callers do not produce together, such as a government agency asking for gift cards. On an iPhone with Apple Intelligence and iOS 26, a short plain-language explanation is written on the phone as well, with a note of how confident it is.

What it cannot hear

It cannot listen to a phone call on the same iPhone, and no app can. iOS gives an active call exclusive use of the microphone, so every other app is cut off the moment the call connects. There is no setting or permission that changes this. If a call comes in while Live Shield is listening, it stops and says why, rather than leaving a transcript that has quietly stopped updating.

That leaves the moments you can reach: a scam call ringing on a landline or a second phone, a caller on speaker in the room, a voicemail, or someone standing in front of you.

It also cannot tell you what to do. Some phrases are honestly ambiguous. A real bank might mention a verification code, and a real relative might be in real trouble. Treat a warning as a reason to slow down and check through a route you found yourself, never as the final word.

Everything stays on the phone

Speech is turned into text on the device. The tactic matching runs on the device. On newer iPhones the explanation is written on the device too. Nothing is recorded to a file, nothing is uploaded, and the transcript exists only in memory until you tap Stop listening or clear the session. If an iPhone cannot turn speech into text offline, the screen says so and the feature is unavailable there, rather than sending your audio to a server.

Listening continues with the screen locked or another app open, which is what lets you set the phone down and let a call play out. It runs until you tap stop, a call takes the microphone, or you close the app.

The SMS Filtering guide moved

The SMS Filtering setup walkthrough now lives in Settings, under SMS Filtering Setup. Nothing about your filtering changed. It is a one-time setup, and it did not need a tab of its own.

Vision 3.1.1

3.1.1 changed words, not behaviour, and the words matter.

The meter used to read "2 scam tactics detected." It now reads "2 tactics to check." A match is a phrase worth a second look, not a verdict, and the wording now says so. The App Store note for this release calls it clearer wording on the risk meter and in Detective.

The FAQ and the in-app release notes were rewritten on the same principle. Sentences that promised an outcome, such as staying ahead of scammers, were rewritten to say what the app does or removed outright. The instructions behind the on-device explanation changed in the same way. They used to open with a claim about keeping people safe, and now open with what the app is for: helping a person pause and check before acting on anything that feels urgent. An explanation written from an honest brief is less likely to overstate what it heard.

Using it

• A call on a landline or a second phone. Put that call on speaker, set the iPhone beside it, and tap Start listening.
• A call on the iPhone itself. It cannot listen during that call. Hang up. If the caller leaves a voicemail, play it back with Live Shield on.
• Someone at the door. Tap Start listening and lock the screen. It keeps listening in your hand or your pocket.
• Whatever it says. End the call, do not call the number back, and check through a number you found yourself. Caller ID Is Not Evidence has the callback rule.

Where this fits

A second pair of ears is still a second opinion. It hears what was said and shows you the words; you decide. If the caller claimed to be family and asked for secrecy, the grandparent scam explains why that pairing is the whole trick. Most of the seven signals in how to spot a scam are tactics it listens for, and all seven can be checked without any app at all.

The four releases that followed, 3.1.2 to 3.1.5, reworked the check counter on the Detective screen. They have a write-up of their own.