Despite having a healthy turnover of cellphones myself, I don’t really like answering the phone.  That goes double for when I don’t recognise the number calling; I tend to let it go to voicemail and decide after that if I should call them back.  Here’s a quick tip if you’re like me (crazy and paranoid, some might say): if you tap “Recent calls” on the iPhone, then the blue arrow next to a particular call, the info screen will look up the location of the caller via their area code.

Of course, there are a couple of caveats to the function.  Most obviously, if someone has ported their number to a new service then the location might not be accurate; it doesn’t check where they actually are, it’s just which area the number was originally from.

International callers aren’t recognised in this way, either, and if the caller is in your contacts then apparently the location doesn’t show up either.  At the moment there’s also no tap-for-a-map functionality either, which would be useful.

Still, next time you get a random call this might help a little in tracking down who made it.

[via 37Signals]