Google is working on a feature so simple and so useful I’m shocked it hasn’t been a part of our lives for a decade: a way to look up the phone number that just called you, right from your recent calls screen. X user AssembleDebug reported PiunikaWeb to the new “Search” button in the beta version of the Google Phone app that, when tapped, opens a Google search with the number you’ve already entered.
Although the Google Phone app is the default for Pixel phones, other Android owners can download it. The new search button exists with other options, like “Block” and “History,” that you see when you tap a recent call in the Phone app. In an age where so much spam comes from spoofed phone numbers made to look like local calls, the feature seems five years overdue.
Despite that, I’m sure I’m not the only person who still goes through the painstaking process of copying unknown numbers that bother me and pasting them into a Google search. These days I only do it after seeing the same number multiple times, but it happens often enough that I’d like to stop fiddling with clunky smartphone copy/paste and dance.
AssembleDebug also sniffed that Google is working on adding Gemini email summaries to the Android version of the Gmail app. As you can see in the screenshot above, the feature exists as a button below the email header. Tap on it and you’ll see a summary. At least that’s the assumed idea. PiunikaWeb it says that the button doesn’t do anything yet, but that there is also a new Gemini menu option in the three-dot menu on Gmail.
Meanwhile, the Android Gemini app can digest email for you (provided you have a Google Workspace account). Obviously, it would be much nicer if Gemini did this directly on Gmail, which already works on the web.