At some point, everyone's been burned by their iPhone going off in the worst possible place. When you see there's no option to decline the call, it's a mad scramble to press every side button or sling the phone through a wall at the speed of sound. But you've seen the on-screen option to decline calls before, so what gives? Fair warning: it's a really simple, forehead-slapping answer. When your iPhone is locked, incoming calls display the "slide to answer" control. When your iPhone is unlocked, you get the option to answer or decline the call.

Depending on your Incoming Calls setting, Accept and Decline buttons appear in a compact banner or across the entire screen, but both options remain. No, you didn't disable anything by accident. This is simply how the iPhone operates by default, right out of the box. On the bright side, it's not set in stone; you can make adjustments via Settings.

You don't need an on-screen button to decline or silence a call, however. You can press the side button twice quickly to decline and send the caller straight to voicemail. Or, you can press either volume button to silence the ring without declining the call. You can do this whether the iPhone screen is locked or not.

The person calling will probably know their call was just rejected if you hit the side button twice the moment your iPhone starts ringing. The practical effect is pretty obvious. Fortunately, rejecting a phone call doesn't have to come off as rude, because you can let the caller know why you rejected it.

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