Just as Google is embracing a divisive gesture-based navigation system with Android P, it seems to be testing different approaches as to how fix the lopsided design. In its latest beta (Developer Preview 4), with gesture navigation enabled, the place occupied by recent apps button is replaced by contextual options:
keyboard switcher if you have multiple keyboards installed, a smart rotation toggle or
accessibility menu (a la iOS's Assistive Touch) if enabled from settings. Quite a neat compromise I must say!
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| The new pill-shaped home button, back button (left) and smart rotation toggle in place of recent apps (right) |
In other news, Apple too released its third beta of
iOS 12 today, but with few user-facing changes (as evidenced below). Although I am overall pleased with Apple's software direction, if there is one thing I badly want the company to adopt, it's to issue updates to first party apps through the App Store rather than release an entire system update. In other words, why do I have to update my entire OS when it's just an update to, say, Voice Memos app?
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| Weather widget displays air quality conditions, FaceTime loses its translucent background, Shortcuts now display an icon on the right, Notification options are condensed |
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| Media Types in Photos have been tweaked again, Notes has an option to leave Handwriting Feedback, Assign to Contact icon looks more human-like and Battery stats highlight low power mode in yellow |
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