Google posted to the Android Developers Blog today a story about DNS over TLS support in Android P. It’s a fun story, if care about things like a built-in Private DNS mode. If you don’t, then you may be interested in another part of this story – the screenshot that was initially shared.
Anything seem different to you in the image above or below? Yep, that’s a new navigation bar setup.
Google has since pulled the screenshot and replaced it with an image that lacks a navigation bar, likely because they realized that they outed something early.
We don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but that area in this screenshot shows a back button, along with a single pill-shaped icon. That could be a home button and it could also be a button that utilizes gestures. If it’s a gesture-based system, I’m envisioning a tap to go home or a swipe to get into or out of apps. Maybe Google has something else planned? Either way, there is no longer an app switcher button displayed on the right, something that has been there for years.
And we know that Android OEMs are adopting gesture systems. Motorola imagery we revealed shows something similar, plus OnePlus is definitely going with gestures in the OnePlus 6 (this is how they work). Maybe this is Google realizing that they need to adjust the navigation system on Android to meet trends, just like they appear to be doing with notch support.
What do you guys think?
I like the new navigation bar – count me in.
Related: the top and bottom bezels on the Pixel 2 XL are different sizes (top is larger) – hopefully they shrink the navigation bar to make up EXACTLY that difference. Please!
Hey Google first notch support in a clear signal that the next pixel will have a notch, and now a freaking navigation gesture? What’s next 3D touch?
About time. The [Back – Home – App Switcher] was getting dated.
Whatever the case I am so ready for the Pixel 3 pre orders to go live. My XL is the best phone I ever owned and this is the first time ive gone over a year without buying a new phone in a long time.
hold on, can we discuss how that clock is on the left side of the notification bar. What kind of madness are we trying to start?
So they include notch support and now this…. If I wanted an iPhone x I would buy an iPhone x…..
Love it. I would love to see this on Galaxy phones <3
It will be, it will just be backwards from every other Android phone.
If they implement this well (which is something Google is usually good at), it can be something very big and exciting.
Copy Apple much? Sesh! No original ideas out of Google in years…
????…. Have you used IOS recently? A lot of those ideas came directly out of Android. The entirety of the updated notification system is based on Android. Their “Today View” with Widgets is Based on Google Now.
Who cares? They all copy each other. No real innovation in software in years.
The UI can only be taken so far. Everyone praised smart phones and tablets for being intuitive just a few years ago. Now the UI has so many shortcuts and features hardly anyone uses them.
Not bad, hopefully they’ll allow us to move the time back to the right, and also maybe put a multitask or menu button on the right side of this lopsided nav bar
I think FLING from Ditry Unicorns ROM is a better implementation for it.
This is so long overdue. Google should have been working on this the MINUTE they moved away from hardware nav keys
Should have been working on it well before, I remember having pretty powerful options for this stuff on CM, AOKP, all other custom ROMs, etc.
Please give the option to choose if I want to or not, also allow gestures to the launcher like Nova does, they come in handy.
Come on, you know Google isn’t giving options anymore since…. Pixel.
Would be cool if anyone can enable the use of it
For the love of all that’s good, go with gesture based pie controls, and finally do away with the nav bar and software keys, Google!
That better not be it, because the lack of symmetry looks absolutely terrible, and the two icons don’t even match.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f8216655793ee754d10914ca6539bb4f79b14530a500a6906c1ba65ceb7aca7.jpg
B-b-b-b-b-but… his hair is not symmetrical
The one thing I would like to see come from this is having the navigation bar disappear entirely when using gestures. At least as an option. It would help with burn-in issues on OLED displays and give us slightly more screen real estate. Having the entire navigation bar still be there with gestures is a bit of a waste imo
As an option sure but certainly not as a requirement.
Just looking at it makes my OCD act up….
https://i.imgur.com/0lGqC7W.gif
Please be swipe between apps.