Google announced a beta for its Phone app this afternoon, with spam filtering as one of the first features. Today’s first beta also contains some other changes like the bottom bar redesign that we enabled several versions ago and tweaks to voicemail transcription.

About APK Insight: In this ‘APK Insight’ post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. We’ll try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how they’ll look in the case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.

Bottom bar redesign

With version 17 in February, we spotted Google working on a bottom bar redesign that makes the Phone app less cluttered around the top search bar. With version 19, this new design is fully live for all users.

Tabs for Favorites and Recent (renamed from Speed dial and Call History, respectively), along with Contacts and Voicemail, are now at the bottom of the screen.

Disabling transcription with turning off visual voicemail

Several weeks ago, Google Phone began supporting voicemail transcripts for T-Mobile in the U.S. At launch, the feature was tied to the standard visual voicemail, so users could not disable transcriptions without doing the same to visual.

That is understandably a bit extreme, with the Phone app now testing a standalone toggle for “Voicemail transcript.” As such, users can continue using visual voicemail and listening to incoming messages, without having to enable Google’s transcription service.

Version 18 Version 19

Spam filtering

Google told us today that spam filtering will be available worldwide in the coming weeks, but that those on the beta will have initial access to it. New strings better describe the feature where “You won’t be disturbed by incoming suspected spam calls.”

<string name=”spam_blocking_promo_action_dismiss”>Dismiss</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_promo_action_filter_spam”>Filter Spam</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_promo_text”>”You won’t be disturbed by incoming suspected spam calls”</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_promo_title”>Also filter suspected spam calls?</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_setting_prompt”>Settings</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_disable_error_text”>Problem turning off spam filtering</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_enable_complete_text”>Spam filtering turned on</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_enable_error_text”>Problem turning on spam filtering</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_key”>spam_blocking</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_summary”>”You won’t be disturbed by incoming suspected spam calls”</string> <string name=”spam_blocking_settings_title”>Filter suspected spam calls</string>

Dylan contributed to this article

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