Google has announced that it is beginning to roll out its Material 3 Expressive makeover to the Phone app on Pixel devices, available to a number beta users.
Google Details Phone App’s Material 3 Expressive Makeover: Inside, Google details a new Favorites bar, allowing you to quickly access the contacts you have favorited, plus a new “simplified” call log. With this, calls from the same person aren’t nested under a single entry, meaning it will be easier to understand your call history with that contact.
Lastly, a call answer/decline gesture is included as a test. Based on user feedback, Google has found that this is preferred due to accidental declines and answers when taking the phone out of your pocket. Full list of the changes are below.
What’s New
- Favorites bar: An easier way to call your Favorites, without having to navigate to a separate Favorites tab.
- Simplified Call Log: A “flattened” call log list, so that calls from the same person aren’t nested under a single entry. This will make it easier to quickly understand your call history as a single chronological list, as opposed to navigating into each contact to view prior missed or answered calls.
- Call Answer/Decline Gesture: The new incoming call UI will test a new horizontal swipe-to-answer/decline gesture, based on user feedback that this is preferred for avoiding accidental declines and answers while taking the phone out of one’s pocket.
If you’re on a Pixel, you could be running the latest QPR1 beta build, which has the beginnings of this change already. If you’re not one for betas, then you may not see these changes for a little bit, as even this announcement is part of Google’s beta program.
Having been on QPR1 for a bit now, I can say that most of the Material 3 Expressive changes have been very solid.
