Google Pixel 6 update: New quick phrase to silence incoming calls is in the offing

Interacting with Google Assistant on your phone was only possible by using the "Hey Google" hotword until last year. However, the Google Pixel 6 brought major changes to the company's smartphone lineup when it arrived in October 2021. The search engine giant introduced Quick phrases that allowed you to carry out some functions without using the hotword.

Citing its skyrocketing popularity, Google decided to expand the feature to more languages after a few months. The Quick phrases are used for two actions. Currently, you can stop or snooze alarms and answer or reject an incoming call using the Quick phrases. However, there's no Quick phrase to silence an incoming call.

However, a recently surfaced teardown of the Google app 13.34 by 9To5Google suggests that a way to silence incoming calls could be in the offing. At present, the Google app 13.34 is currently in beta. The teardown of the app indicates that the American tech giant is gearing up to add a Quick phrase for "Silence." As the naming suggests, the phrase will enable users to silence incoming calls.

In other words, you do not need to either decline or accept incoming calls on your Pixel smartphone. Also, this means you can answer/decline the call or simply silence the call and let the phone ring. You can mute the incoming calls on your Pixel 6 smartphone by pressing the volume rocker.

The word on the street is that the feature has already entered the internal testing phase. Moreover, the internal team is reportedly referring to the feature as "v2" of Quick phrases for calls.

However, Google is still mum on its alleged plan to roll out the new Quick phrases functionality to the Pixel 6 smartphone yet. There is a possibility that the new Quick phrase will debut alongside the Pixel 7 series later this month.

Alternatively, Google might just roll it out with the next Feature Drop. Quick phrases can be used for numerous functions in addition to stopping the alarm on displays and smart speakers with Google Assistant.

For instance, you can reset the timer, skip to the next song, check the weather, cancel all alarms, and more without using the "Hey Google" hotword. It will be interesting to see whether Google brings these capabilities to Pixel 6 and 7 series smartphones.