UPDATE: Google appears to have pulled the Phone and Contacts apps from the Play Store.
Google has released a lot of Android apps in the Play Store over the years, and today it added two more apps to its library.
Google’s Phone and Contacts apps are now in the Play Store, and they’re pretty much what you’d expect. The Phone app is the dialer that’s built in to Android, offering Caller ID, Call Blocking, and Visual Voicemail features. The app also includes a Nearby Places feature that’ll let you search for places nearby and call them right from the Phone app.
Meanwhile, the Contacts app lets you add new contacts, edit the info on contact cards, and call or message directly your contacts directly from those cards. You can also save your contacts to your Google account and access them on other devices.
Google notes that these apps are only supported on Nexus, Android One, and Google Play Edition devices that are running Android 6.0 and up. If you happen to have a phone or tablet that qualifies, the arrival of these apps in the Play Store means that Google can more easily update them rather than waiting around to include updates in full-on Android OS updates. We’ve seen a lot of companies adopt this strategy lately, and it looks like Google is onboard with it as well.