To address how Phone by Google recently gained a landscape calling screen, the dialer app is now offering a setting to “Keep portrait mode on calls.”
Update 12/26: As of this week, this new setting was rolled back for beta users and no longer appears under Display options. It appears to be gone for all testers, and never rolled out to the stable channel. Other preview features like Expressive Calling remain available.
Original 12/11: When you’re on a call, the Google Phone app has a landscape mode with a two-column layout. Contact information like name and number, as well as their Calling Card, appears on the left, while the right side shows the bottom sheet of controls and other options.
Some people, who do not have Auto-rotate disabled on a system level, found this to be a highly annoying change, especially when in movement.
Beta version 202 adds “Keep portrait mode on calls: Prevents accidental auto-rotation when on a call.” Go to Settings > Display options for a new “Controls” heading to find this preference.
We’re seeing this portrait setting widely in the Phone app’s beta channel (where Google is also shortening the bottom bar), but it’s not yet in stable channel (version 201).
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