It's the international caller's best friend
Have you noticed a little text notification saying “dial assist” when you make a call on your iPhone? This feature is enabled by default for all iOS users, whether on an iPhone 5, iPhone 7, or iPhone 14. This little feature helps to ensure calls connect quickly and easily.
In this article, we’ll help you better understand dial assist and how to turn it off or on. Android phones have a similar feature called “Assisted Dialing.”
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What Is “Dial Assist” on an iPhone?
If you make many international calls, dial assist can be your best friend. When making an international call, you’re supposed to enter the international or local prefixes before the regular phone number. These additional numbers are hard to remember because there are so many. Each country has its own international prefix number. That’s one of the reasons why Apple added this notable feature to its iPhones.
When dial assist is enabled, your iPhone automatically recognizes the reference country you’re trying to call and determines if it should add the prefix number. It uses various parameters to identify which country you’re calling and modifies the number as needed to help you reach the person you want.
Although dial assist is a handy feature, it can cause problems sometimes, especially if you are abroad. Most issues happen when you have already saved a contact with an international prefix. Dial assist can mess up trying to add a prefix where there’s no need for one. That call will fail. So turning off dial assist is sometimes a good thing to do.
How to Turn Dial Assist Off and On
The Dial Assist feature works only for already saved and favorite contacts. If you opt to enter the whole phone number manually, it won’t work. Also, if you’re having problems getting a call through, you might want to check if someone blocked your number. Here’s how to disable Dial Assist:
- Open Settings on your iPhone.
- Go to Phone.
- Find the Dial Assist switch at the bottom of the screen and tap it to turn it off or on.
Note that when Dial Assist is turned off, you’ll have to manually enter the international country code or the area code each time you make a phone call.
That’s it! To turn it back on, simply follow the same steps and toggle the switch. Of course, if Dial Assist isn’t something you often use (or at all), you can always disable the feature with a few simple taps in your Settings app. Ultimately, customize your iPhone experience to fit your individual needs and preferences.
