Pixel phones might finally be getting this highly requested feature in India (APK teardown)

India has over a billion cellphone users and is one of the most affected countries in the world when it comes to spam calls. Hundreds of millions of spam calls are reported daily in the country, yet Pixel phones don’t offer Call Screening as an option for Indian users. Pixel enthusiasts in the country have been requesting the feature for years, and it looks like their pleas may soon be answered.

Google introduced Call Screening on Pixel phones in 2018. While India now receives all of Google’s flagships, this feature, along with other useful functions like Spam Detection, has been missing from the Pixel lineup in the country.

When I previously spoke to Mike Abary, Vice President of Devices & Services Business, APAC at Google, he acknowledged this gap and told Android Authority that the company is actively working to bring these features to India.

“It is not lost on us that we need to make sure that we bring this capability to India, and we have plans to do that. The delay is less about technical challenges and more about policy-related hurdles, which we are working to address,” Abary had said at the time.

While digging through a recent version of the Phone by Google app, we discovered internal files that strongly indicate Pixel’s Call Screening feature is in development for the Indian market. Call Screening allows users to identify callers and their reasons for calling before answering the phone. It also uses AI to provide smart replies during calls, allowing users to quickly respond to common questions without speaking.

Buried within the Phone by Google app’s internal data folders, we found several resources related to Call Screening and its smart replies feature, including a batch of audio files in Hindi. This suggests that Google is preparing localized support for the feature, an important first step toward an Indian rollout.

We also managed to get the feature working with some tricks, but it seems to be a work in progress right now because it doesn’t recognize Hindi speech just yet, and can only recognize English. However, it did manage to generate replies in Hindi. Check out the screenshot below.

Unlike in the US, where users can opt for automatic Call Screening, the Indian version of the feature appears to rely on a manual screening method. This would allow users to initiate the screening process by tapping a “Screen call” button when they receive a call, instead of the phone automatically screening calls.

That said, these are just initial findings. Google may just be testing the waters while it awaits regulatory approvals to launch the feature in India. Given that the country has over 22 officially recognized languages, Google has its work cut out for it.