Google Phone has a "paw mode" easter egg

The internet is obsessed with cats and dogs. We think the entire internet economy would collapse without a steady stream of cat memes or adorable dog videos. Google apparently is doing its part to spread the cuteness with an Easter Egg that has been discovered in the latest update to its Google Phone app for Android.

Android Police did one of their trademarked code teardowns on the 9.0 version of Google Phone last week, and found images of a cat and a dog paw hidden in the app. At the time, the post could not figure out why these pictures were there. Now the site is reporting it has found the secret, thanks to a tip from one of its readers, Kieron Quinn.

As shown in the video above, Quinn discovered that if you dial *#*#729#*#* in the app, you enable what he calls “Paw Mode”. After that, when you get an incoming call, either a cat or dog paw will randomly pop up on the screen to show you how to answer it.

Is it silly? Absolutely. Could it get really annoying after a few calls come in? It could indeed, in which case you can disable “Paw Mode” by dialing in the same code again. There’s no word as to why the Google Phone app team threw in this Easter Egg in the code for the 9.0 version but we can’t certainly can’t complain. We love cute kittys and puppies, and if they can help us out with phone calls, we would “paw-sitively” love that.