Ahead of the full Material 3 Expressive redesign, Phone by Google is widely removing the Favorites tab for users enrolled in the beta program.
As announced last month, a “Favorites bar” at the top of the Recents (soon “Home”) feed is replacing the dedicated tab. That interface had a grid of your top contacts and a list of “Frequents” underneath.
Now, you’ll get a carousel of Favorites with profile avatars that are larger than in the list below. Scroll left for an “Add” shortcut, while you can tap the chevron to hide the carousel as needed.
Old vs. new
This simplifies the app to Recents, Contacts, and Voicemail, as well as the FAB (floating action button) for the number pad. Beta version 182 of Phone by Google released yesterday widely introduces the change, though there’s also a server-side component so you might not see it immediately after updating. This applies to both Pixel and non-Google phones, as well as those without the Material 3 Expressive redesign that some users started receiving last month with the new incoming call gesture. We’re not seeing this in the stable channel yet.
The Favorites tab is also disappearing for Google Phone users with M3 Expressive, which is not yet widely rolled out to everyone in the beta, though it’s still called the Recents tab.
The full Expressive redesign will consolidate the bottom bar to Home, Keypad, and Voicemail.
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