Google Phone 9.0 teardown reveals upcoming features - notification channels, picture messaging and more

A Google Phone update doesn’t usually offer too much to talk about. Last week’s version 9.0 rollout apparently had nothing for us to write about, but a teardown has uncovered a few gems within the code. There is evidence of at least a handful of new features present in this new update.

For starters, notification channels are a hot Android O topic, and Google looks to be getting its Phone app ready to take advantage of these. This new feature will allow applications to group notifications into categories. Sounds, vibrations and notification lights could then react differently to each.

Plenty of phones have the option to send a prewritten text message when one can’t answer a call, but what about the caller? It’s common to send a message to the recipient, letting him know what the call was about, or its level of urgency. There is code in this APK file regarding “post-call messages”, which would be just what their moniker entails. There aren’t many details on how this will be implemented, but it sure sounds like a helpful tool is in the works.

There is also some code in Google Phone 9.0 that hints at more convenient picture messaging. Here’s the thing: if you’ve ever wanted to quickly send an image during a call, you’d normally need to exit the phone app, open your messaging app of choice, then go about sending your photo. Google Phone 9.0 contains a few different notifications relating to picture messaging, including “Received a photo” and “Sent a photo”.

Lastly, there’s some code relating to dialer codes, too. Not familiar with dialer codes? The idea is that you can dial a series of characters to display information or perform certain actions. Now it seems like the Google Phone app will be able to take advantage of these.

Plenty of codes show up in the teardown, but we don’t know what they do just yet. And while some have been used in the past, we advise that you don’t test your luck. That is, unless you know what you are doing and realize using these could potentially damage your phone and/or void your warranty. Hit the source link to see the codes.