Skip to Content

How to Fake a Dropped Call on Your iPhone When You No Longer Want to Chat

by

If you've ever wanted to end a call on your iPhone without seeming rude, this handy little trick is for you. Keep reading to learn how to fake a dropped call.

ios 14 phone calls
Whenever you hang up a call on ‌iPhone‌, the person on the other end sees a message on their phone saying "Call Ended." This is usually treated as a clear indication that you ended the call on purpose, since if the call had dropped due to bad reception, the message would have read "Call Failed," which sounds a lot less incriminating.

So what if you want to end a call without it looking like you abruptly and rudely hung up? The answer is to turn on Airplane mode. That's because when Airplane mode is enabled during a call, the call immediately ends and the person on the other end sees "Call Failed," as if the conversation ended through no fault of your own. Granted, it's sneaky, but it works.

The easiest way to turn on Airplane Mode is via Control Center. To open Control Center, swipe down diagonally from the top-right corner of the screen (if your ‌iPhone‌ has a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen). Then, tap the button that looks like an airplane so that it turns orange and the green cellular button next to it grays out. The cellular provider name in the top-left corner will also be replaced by a plane symbol.

control center
This should immediately end the call, and all that the person on the other end will see is that the call "failed." If you still appear to be on the call, chances are you have Wi-Fi calling enabled, in which case simply tap the blue Wi-Fi button in Control Center to end Wi-Fi calling.

Popular Stories

MacBook Neo Feature Pastel 1

First MacBook Neo Benchmarks Are In: Here's How It Compares to the M1 MacBook Air

Thursday March 5, 2026 4:07 pm PST by
Benchmarks for the new MacBook Neo surfaced today, and unsurprisingly, CPU performance is almost identical to the iPhone 16 Pro. The MacBook Neo uses the same 6-core A18 Pro chip that was first introduced in the iPhone 16 Pro, but it has one fewer GPU core. The MacBook Neo earned a single-core score of 3461 and a multi-core score of 8668, along with a Metal score of 31286. Here's how the...
HomePod mini and Apple TV Sage

New Apple TV and HomePod Mini Are Still Missing, Here's Why

Thursday March 5, 2026 6:11 am PST by
Apple this week unveiled seven products, ranging from the iPhone 17e to the MacBook Neo, but new Apple TV and HomePod mini models were not among them. Given that there have been rumors about the next-generation Apple TV and HomePod mini since all the way back in late 2024, some customers are wondering why the devices have yet to launch, and the answer likely relates to Siri. In September, ...
MacBook Neo Feature Pastel 1

Apple Announces $599 'MacBook Neo' With A18 Pro Chip

Wednesday March 4, 2026 6:15 am PST by
Apple today announced the "MacBook Neo," an all-new kind of low-cost Mac featuring the A18 Pro chip for $599. The MacBook Neo is the first Mac to be powered by an iPhone chip; the A18 Pro debuted in 2024's iPhone 16 Pro models. Apple says it is up to 50% faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5, up to 3x faster for on-device AI workloads,...