Google’s native call recording working on the Phone beta app, release imminent?

Google has been working on call recording within its Phone app for quite a while now and today in an APK teardown by XDA Developers it has been enabled after they found the flag for it.

Working on the Google Phone beta 44.0.291987060 XDA Developers were able to activate and use the call recording functionality. Within the app they found some useful hints that it must be close to being ready for release.

After triggering a toggle within the APK XDA were able to get as recording button to show up. Tapping it while in a phone call tells the person on the other end of the phone call that “This call is now being recorded” and when you have finished recording and tap the button again they will hear “Call recording has now ended”.

Once you have finished recording the wave file of the call recording will be seen within the Phone’s Recents menu where you can share it. XDA were also able to find strings which indicated that in the future you will also be able to receive a transcript of the recording which is not surprising given their recording app works extremely well.

<string name=”call_recording_transcript_not_available”>Transcript not available</string>

There is also a pop-up the first time you use the feature yourself:

When using the call recording feature, you are responsible for complying with applicable laws related to the recording of calls. Please be aware that many jurisdictions require the consent of both parties for such recording.

9to5Google were also able to get the call recording feature working when they tore down the APK file and took some screenshots of the interface as well as a video of it in action — yes that is Assistant’s voice you hear when the call recording beginning is announced.

Of course call recording is not legal in all countries and is a murky area in more. For this reason the release is expected to be limited to a small number of countries at first.

XDA tested the app out on a Pixel 4 and a OnePlus 7 Pro without any issues but had issues when calling an iPhone. At this stage which phones and where the feature will be launched is unclear but it sounds like a very handy feature to have included natively so we can only hope it lands here.