It’s tough to get people to answer the phone—though I’m not really blaming those who don’t pick up. We are so inundated with spam calls these days that refusing to answer incoming calls en masse isn’t actually a bad strategy. When that call could be someone trying to break into your bank account, or alerting you to fraudulent credit card charges that never happened, perhaps it’s best to just wait for friends and family to text instead.
But let’s say the call is from you to someone you know and trust, and let’s assume they see it’s you who’s calling. Even though they know the call isn’t spam, there are still plenty of reasons someone won’t pick up the phone—including, of course, because they don’t actually want to talk right now. But if you really need to get a hold of someone and don’t want meetings, commutes, or the lack of desire for a phone call to get in the way, Google is currently working on a solution you can try right now.
Call Reason lets you mark calls as urgent
The new feature, named “Call Reason,” is designed to separate important phone calls from the rest. When you start dialing a number, Google will give you the option to mark the call as urgent. If you choose to do so, the person you’re calling will see a pop-up reading “It’s urgent!” on the call screen. Hopefully, that pop-up will encourage them to answer; however, I imagine they’ll stop picking up if you start using it too often.
That said, not everyone ignores calls on purpose. If you aren’t by your phone when it goes off, or if it’s on silent in your pocket or bag, you obviously won’t catch the urgent tag on the call screen. In that case, Android adds the urgent tag to the missed call in their recipient’s call history. As long as the person you’re trying to reach checks out their missed calls, they should see that this one was marked urgent—though if it’s a real emergency, they might’ve received extra calls and messages from you in the interim anyway.
It seems Google has been working on this feature for some time. Android Authority previously spotted something called Expressive Calling in the Phone app’s APK, which would let the caller add animations and emojis to calls. In addition to that functionality, however, was the ability to flag the reason for a call when dialing.
What do you think so far?
How to try Call Reason
Google is still testing the Call Reason feature, but anyone using the current version of the Google Phone app will be able to try it out. (It’s still rolling out, though, so you may not see it yet.) The feature also only works with saved contacts, and when calling Android users who have Google’s Phone app set as the primary calling app.
When Call Reason does show up on your phone, you’ll see it appear after placing your call. The UI says “Mark call as urgent?,” with a prompt letting you know that the call will ring through and show the call is urgent. Tap “Notify,” and you’re set. Once the recipient sees the call, they’ll see the “Incoming call” banner replaced by an animated “It’s urgent!” pop-up. It’s a fun design, but perhaps a bit too fun, when you’re likely using this in important situations.
Credit: Google
Alongside Call Reason, Google announced a number of new features for Android 16. There are now improved parental controls locked behind a PIN of the parents’ choosing; new UI customization options, like expanded dark mode support and new custom shapes for home screen icons; and the continued roll out of Google’s AI notification summaries, which Lifehacker writer David Nield hasn’t found all that useful yet.