What you need to know
- Google may soon enhance the Call Screen feature on Pixel phones to automatically decline robocalls.
- Currently, the feature requires the user to initiate it and then select a response.
- While the new Call Screen features are currently being tested, there is no word yet on when the feature will be made available to Pixel users.
One of the most useful software features available on the latest Pixel phones is Call Screen, which basically protects you from those annoying robocalls. While the feature in its current form isn't truly "smart", an APK teardown of the latest Google Phone v4.2 by the folks at XDA Developers has revealed that Google is currently working on making Call Screen much more useful by enabling it to screen robocalls automatically.
As can be seen in the screenshots below, Pixel users will be able to choose from three options for automatic call screening: automatically screen to decline robocalls, ring the phone, or automatically decline the incoming call silently.
One of the screenshots also describes how the automatic call screening feature will work. Google Assistant will automatically answer unknown calls. When the Assistant detects a robocall, it will be silently declined, without interrupting the user. In case of other unknown calls, the phone will ring a few moments later, with a transcript of the call. Calls from your contacts, however, will never be screened automatically by the Assistant.
Another new addition will be the ability to save the audio from screen calls. Currently, the feature only lets users save the transcript for screened calls. The automatic call screening feature will also offer improved spam detection to fight robocalls. In addition to numbers that match Google's spam database, the Google Phone app will also detect unknown numbers, private or hidden numbers, as well as faked numbers.
