Google Phone’s latest UI test brings it closer to the iPhone (APK teardown)

One of the emotions that came to the fore with the launch Pixel 9 series It’s how close the Pixel series comes to emulating the iPhone in terms of look and feel. Somewhere in between the new Pixel 9 series phones Pixel 8 And iPhone 16 (which is exactly the same as the iPhone 15). It looks like Google isn’t stopping there, because the latest UI change spotted in the Google Phone app changes the incoming call screen, bringing the button behavior even closer to the iPhone.

With the latest Phone app update, v145.0.672690850, Google is testing a new UI for the incoming call screen.

Currently, when you receive an incoming call on your phone (which has the Google Phone app installed, without any OEM Phone app of the same name), the Google Phone app displays a button with the phone icon. You can swipe up to answer the call or swipe down to reject the call. You can see the current user interface in the screenshots below:

The new test favors the two-button layout for call management. On the left is a dedicated red button to reject the call, and on the right is a dedicated green button to answer the call. To see the test in action, you can see the screenshots provided by Telegram user iDeepak_Sharma:

If the new testing interface looks familiar, you’re right. Many other Android OEMs use a dedicated button UI for incoming calls. But OEMs like Samsung place the accept button on the left and the reject button on the right. Apple, on the other hand, places the reject button on the left and the accept button on the right.

We were not able to enable this feature on our side, so upcoming changes are most likely being tested via server-side switches. Google hasn’t announced this change yet, so this is still a test and not a confirmed change, so user feedback may decide its future.

It’s no surprise that the Google Phone app has changed its button layout to match some of the most popular phones on the market. The Google Phone app is not only available on Pixel smartphones, but is also pre-installed on some phones by OEMs like Xiaomi and OnePlus. So it could be argued that button layout in the Phone app has become more popular than on the iPhone (given the popularity of Android phones), but the writing is on the wall that we can now move towards a more consistent look across mobile operating systems.

Do you like this new incoming call UI? Vote in the poll below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!