Apple will soon allow businesses to customize how emails and phone calls appear on iPhone. Apple announced Wednesday that companies using its Business Connect tool will be able to add their brand name and logo to appear in iPhone apps for email, phone calls and payments.
Each registered business can confirm that their information is correct and add additional details such as photos or special offers. Gathering verified, up-to-date business information could be useful for Apple if it ever launches its own search engine or internal Apple Intelligence features, rather than redirecting users to external sources like Google, Yelp or Meta.
Branded Mail is a feature that businesses can sign up for today before rolling out to users later this year. This may make emails easier to identify in a flood of unread messages. In recent years, Gmail has also added authenticated brand logos and checkmarks to indicate whether an email comes from a verified source.
Additionally, when businesses opt for Business Caller ID, Apple displays their name, logo and department on an iPhone's incoming call screen. This feature should be useful if you want to find out if the random number calling you is spam or a legitimate company. The rollout will begin next year.
A minor update to Apple's Tap to Pay service will allow businesses to display their logo when accepting payments instead of just displaying a category icon.