First reported in late June, Google now appears to be widely rolling out iOS-inspired Calling Cards to the Google Contacts app, at least to users on the beta channel. We hadn’t seen the feature in action before, but it seems Google decided it was ready for prime time and is pushing it out widely to beta users.
Initial reports suggested Calling Cards in the Google Phone and Contacts apps would be similar to the iPhone’s Contact Poster, which Apple introduced with iOS 17 in 2023. But that’s not exactly the case, with Google’s implementation having one major difference.
Instead of setting up your own contact poster for others to view, you customize the incoming call picture of people in your phone book. There does not appear to be a way to customize your Calling Card at all.
Think of Calling Cards as a more sophisticated and customizable version of setting a display picture for a contact. I got the option to add a calling card when I opened the Phone app after installing the latest version (v188.0.793710089-publicbeta) from the Play Store. You will also see a similar option if you open a contact entry in the Google Contacts app.
The image you set as a Calling Card for a person will appear as a full-screen image on the incoming or outgoing call screen. The change goes well with the Phone app’s recent Material 3 Expressive redesign.
You can choose an image from your phone’s Gallery, select one from Google Photos, or snap a new picture with the Camera app. The Google Photos integration makes the feature especially handy, especially if your library is organized, as you can instantly pull up the perfect image for each contact.
This is the upgrade Android’s call screen deserved
Besides adding a full-screen image, you can customize the font and color of the caller’s name. When using Google Contacts to add a Calling Card for a contact, you’ll also be prompted to set it as the contact picture. The image will also double as a banner photo for that contact in the Google Contacts app. Hopefully, the Calling Card image will also appear in Google Contacts on the web, though I’m not seeing it right now.
The only other problem with Google’s implementation is that you must set the Calling Card individually for each contact in your phonebook, a time-consuming and daunting task.
