Google Phone stealing One UI, iOS call answer buttons

Google Phone is testing a new UI with buttons for accepting and declining calls. The refreshed user interface includes two dedicated buttons to decline and answer calls. It looks almost similar to iOS and matches Samsung’s One UI.

Currently, Google Phone offers a swipe gesture method for accepting and declining an incoming call. Swiping up the phone button accepts the incoming call while swiping down declines the incoming call.

The new UI that Google is testing includes two buttons. The button to decline a call (RED) is placed on the left, while the accept call button (GREEN) is placed on the right. It is the same placement as the iOS dialer app, with no swipe gestures like One UI.

Smartphones running stock Android use Google Phone as the default dialer app. Samsung has its own Phone app, which is way more advanced than Google’s. Apple’s iPhone runs iOS software, and the phone app is designed differently.

With the One UI 6.1.1, Samsung allows accepting and declining calls by tapping on the buttons. Previous versions only allowed the operation through left-to-right or right-to-left swipe gestures on the buttons within the UI.

Google is currently testing the new user interface with dedicated buttons. It is not available to general consumers on a wide scale. We expect a future Google Phone update will bring it to Pixel smartphones.

I have used Pixel 7 Pro pretty long period as my daily driver. The swipe gesture becomes quite annoying sometimes. I also faced unwanted declines due to a mistaken swipe-down gesture while taking the phone out of my pocket.