Have you ever wished that there was a feature that let important calls cut through your phone’s DND setting? Yes, you can allow some contacts to bypass DND, but that’s a general override for all calls coming from said contacts.
With what Google seems to be testing now, some of your contacts might be able to pass through DND without your explicit permission.
Highlighted by the folks over at Android Authority after digging through a recent Phone app beta build (version 201.0.833052069), Google seems to be working on a new “Expressive Calling” feature, one that will let you mark your outgoing call as important.
From the looks of it, users will be able to add a text message to their outgoing call, while those on the receiving end will see the message and decide whether the context warrants an immediate answer.
On the receiving end, the additional context might appear as “Call Reason,” as highlighted in the newly unearthed code.
<string name="expresso_expresso_line">Call Reason</string>
<string name=”expresso_expresso_summary”>Notify and see when a call is urgent</string>
Alongside the Call Reason, callers will also be able to select one of four pre-set urgency messages. These are:
- 🚨 It’s urgent!
- 🔔 News to share
- 👋 Catch up
- ❓ Quick question
Said messages will be transmitted via RCS and will require you to grant the phone app SMS permissions. Elsewhere, subsequent code strings also confirm that the feature will be able to bypass DND.
Expect the feature to be spam-proofed before release
Strings like “Allow incoming urgent calls to make sound,” and “Urgent call can interrupt Do Not Disturb” clearly indicate that the upcoming feature will have heightened priority, allowing it to cut through the receiver’s silence and DND modes. Considering the potential for spam, Expressive Calling will be limited to contacts only. Within contacts too, it is likely that Google will have measures in place to prevent users from abusing the feature.
Even though the feature couldn’t be manually enabled, we know that it will highlight a ‘Missed an Urgent Call’ notification in case you, as a receiver, don’t answer an urgent call.
It’s not entirely clear if and when the feature will be available to try out, though considering the amount of work already put in, evident from code strings, the feature’s arrival is more of a question of when, not if.
