When you receive an incoming call on your iPhone, you don’t always see the Decline button. Sometimes all you get is the Remind Me, Message, and Slide to answer options. The Decline button is absent. This happens whenever you receive a call on a locked iPhone. If your iPhone is unlocked, you will see a Decline and an Accept button along with the Remind Me and Message buttons. What this essentially means is that there’s no button that lets you decline a call from the lock screen on the iPhone. This hold true if we’re talking soft, on-screen buttons. You can decline a call from the lock screen but the option isn’t going to be displayed on your screen.
iPhone
You might be aware that if you press the sleep/wake button on the right side of your iPhone, it silences the incoming call. If you press this same button twice, quickly, it will decline the call. If you have voicemail set up on your iPhone, the call will go to voicemail instead. This will work on all iPhone models from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone X.
Apple Watch
If you own an Apple Watch, you get incoming call alerts on it. The call alerts include a Decline button so all you have to do is tap it and the call will be declined.
Apple Earbuds
If you have your Apple Earbuds connected to your iPhone, you can press and hold the middle button to decline a call from the lock screen. You need only hold it for two seconds. The earbuds will give you audio feedback to let you know a call has been declined.
It appears that there is no way to decline an incoming call from the lock screen using AirPods. Apple’s own support page for the Airpods only lists how you can accept an incoming call with AirPods. The AirPods let you answer an incoming call but declining one isn’t a supported feature.
It’s odd why Apple has decided to not show the Decline button on a locked device. On iOS 11, users can access the Timer, enable and disable cellular data, play music, take photos, enable Do Not Disturb, and more all from a locked phone. Granted all these features don’t pose a security risk however neither does the ability to decline a call from the lock screen. The end result of this is that people are confused as to why they sometimes see the decline button and other times don’t.
