Google’s Pixel 7 & 7 pro Making Phone Calls More Pleasant

Web Desk — Google’s Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro mobile phone focuses the most on fundamental smartphone features: the phone call. Google refuses to forget about the phone part of its smartphones.
Google product manager Brian Rakowski said, “Pixel 7 is designed to be the best phone for actual phone calling.”

There’s Clear Calling for improving the audio quality of voice calls and an upgraded Direct My Call to make it quicker and easier to navigate call center phone trees. Other features returning from previous Pixel devices include Hold for Me and Call Screen.

‘Clear Calling’ is the most fundamental feature to help with phone calls, hints of which were discovered in Google’s beta software last month. A blog post by Google product manager Jonathan Eccles describes how the Pixel 7 uses machine learning to reduce background noise from persons on the other end of a phone call, making them more audible, “even if they’re on a windy street or in a noisy restaurant.”

This is not the first time a company has implemented noise suppression technology. In terms of conference calls and streaming, Nvidia and AMD already offer similar functionality on PCs. While Apple hasn’t made a big deal out of its Voice Isolation feature and hides it in a submenu, Google presented Clear Calling as one of the Pixel 7’s flagship features during its presentation.

Additionally, Direct My Call, which launched with the Pixel 6 last year, is being upgraded. With Direct My Call, you can easily navigate the often complicated menus used by call centers to triage your call. Various options are transcribed and displayed as on-screen text so you can easily see all the options before making your decision. Since the feature was launched, 50 million business calls have been made using it.

Also available on the Pixel 3A and up is Wait Times, another feature launched with last year’s Pixel 6. Wait Times is designed to reduce the frustration of waiting on hold. Instead of handling your call, the feature estimates the duration of your hold time based on other people’s calls.

Although modern smartphones are packed with a dizzying array of features, Google’s presentation didn’t forget the basics. What good is a phone that emulates the quality of a standalone DSLR camera if it can’t make basic phone calls?