With the release of Android 9 Pie, there has been a number of sweet new features added. Between a new gesture navigation UI, RAM-heavy game protection, Slices and App Actions APIs, Google has put a lot of work into the latest version of their mobile operating system. However, there does seem to be some regressions. While we noted the existence of a call-recording tone added back in February of this year, it seems that this may simply have been added for consistency and not a signal that Android would be getting better call recording features. On the contrary, it looks like Android Pie has completely blocked call recording without root.
This isn't the first time Google has challenged call recording. In fact, the company has done it for a while. Back with the release of Android Marshmallow, Google killed off the official call-recording API, leaving developers to create their own way of doing so. That was fine as these solutions worked just as well, or even better than, the official API. The developers of both CallRecorder - ACR and BoldBeast Android Call Recorder have confirmed that Google has closed off the workaround they used to record calls, leaving root-only methods the only way to record your phone calls.
While the legality of call recording differs from country to country, it's strange that Google would take steps to entirely block it. Some countries only require single-party consent, and even with two-party consent, there are many reasons that a phone call may be recorded. The addition of a beeping tone was seen to be an acceptance that call recording would take place, however, Google is still cracking down on it entirely. It may be possible that a non-root method is discovered in the future, don't get your hopes up. For now, you'll be forced to use root-enabled applications to record any of your phone calls. It's possible that maybe this change is not intended, but regardless it will be a hindrance to a lot of people. We'll be sure to update you if the status of call recording on Android Pie changes in the future.
[appbox googleplay com.nll.acr]