Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google Contacts has been working on a new “Calling Cards” feature for a few versions now.
- Earlier analysis has suggested that this could function very similarly to iOS Contact Posters.
- New text strings and a promo image add further support to that interpretation.
What is it they say about mobile operating systems? Good platforms copy, but great platforms steal? Android and iOS have definitely traded ideas more than a few times over the years, and just last month we were looking at what felt like Android’s latest attempt to crib off Apple’s notes. Google’s Contacts app appeared to be working on its own version iOS Contact Posters, with “Calling Cards” teasing custom pictures and a stylized rendering of your name to announce callers. At least, that’s what it felt like Google was up to, but we still weren’t sure exactly how this was going to work.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
We still don’t quite have the full picture, but as were analyzing the changes in version 4.60.30.783994635 of Contacts, we spotted some further hints towards what to expect from Calling Cards:
Code
<string name="calling_card_promo_card_header">Try adding a calling card</string>
<string name="calling_card_promo_card_supporting_text">Customize how %s appears during calls</string>
<string name="dismiss_calling_card_promo_card_all_contacts_button">All contacts</string>
<string name="dismiss_calling_card_promo_card_body_text">Dismiss this suggestion for all contacts or only this contact?</string>
<string name="dismiss_calling_card_promo_card_this_contact_button">This contact</string>We knew from last time around that Calling Cards would let you choose a custom font, presumably for the display of your name, and that second string above feels like it adds some support to that interpretation, confirming that Calling Card custom content is explicitly intended to show up during calls.
What we’d love at this point is to actually show you a Calling Card as they’d appear in Contacts, but the app’s not quite ready to let us get that far right now. But while we’ll have to keep digging to make any headway there, we do have maybe the next best thing, having unearthed an illustration it looks like Contacts could be planning to use when it finally introduces this tool to users:
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
That sure seems to add credence to the idea that Calling Cards will utilize a full-screen picture of your contact. Sadly, though, it doesn’t do anything to add to our understanding of how text will factor in to these Cards, leaving us to keep looking at iOS Contact Posters and wondering it we might really get a 1:1 copy.
Hopefully we get a chance to see this in action soon, and can finally put the last of this speculation to rest.
