The One App You Should Change On Every Android Phone

Consumer Tech The One App You Should Change On Every Android Phone Barry Collins Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I am a consumer tech expert writing about Windows, PCs, laptops, Mac, broadband and more. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Nov 5, 2022, 07:00am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin People often neglect to change the phone app on their smartphones getty There’s one app on every Android smartphone that most people never change, despite there being a much better option out there – the Phone app itself. Most people don’t realize that the app that handles phone calls can be changed just like a web browser, email client or any other app on the smartphone. Instead, they stick with the stock phone app that’s supplied by their smartphone manufacturer and miss out on a host of extremely useful features.

The phone app I strongly recommend you install on Android devices is Phone by Google . It’s free, has powerful features that can spare you from irritating spam calls and make it easier to ring local businesses, and it’s almost certainly better than the one supplied with your phone – unless your phone is a Google Pixel, in which case you’ve probably already got it! Phone by Google benefits Phone by Google has one huge benefit – it deals with those annoying spam calls that are the bane of every smartphone owner’s life. By default, Phone by Google flags when an incoming call is suspected spam by flashing a big red warning on the screen.

When a message is flagged as spam, you can be pretty certain it’s going to be a nuisance call. I’ve been using the app for a week now, and every time a message was marked as spam (I get a few each day), I answered to check it was. Google got it right every time.

It’s so good, that I’ve now dived into the call settings and switched on the option to filter spam calls so that they don’t even ring my phone and disturb me. It’s true that other Phone apps also have spam detection. Samsung’s own Phone app does a very similar job, but there are other reasons to opt for Google’s app.

MORE FOR YOU Meet The Unknown Immigrant Billionaire Betting Her Fortune To Take On Musk In Space Teeling Releases Stunning 32 YO Irish Single Malt Whiskey The True Essence Of Hybrid: In-Person Work To Inspire; Remote Work To Get Things Done Searching for numbers If you wanted to look up the number of your local pizza place, you’d probably fire up Google and search from there. However, Phone by Google lets you search for places from within the phone app itself, in exactly the same way you might search for a contact stored in your phone (it does that too, of course). It’s smart about how it searches for numbers, too.

For example, if I search for “Domino’s”, the top three phone numbers returned are the three nearest branches of the pizza delivery service. If I search for “taxi”, it lists local cab firms. That’s all based on your current location, not a predefined hometown, so if you’re in a strange place and need to call a cab or local restaurant, you can do it directly from the phone app.

Advanced features There are other strong features in Phone by Google, but they might not be available in your region or from your carrier. Visual voicemail, where you get sent a transcript of voicemail messages, is one such feature, as is call screening, where Google effectively answers the phone for you (if it’s a number you don’t recognize, for instance) and again you can read a transcript of what the caller said to Google’s auto-responder before you decide to return the call. If your current phone app doesn’t offer these features, it’s probably time to hang up on it.

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