1y ago

About the popularity of 2 button navigation

Ever since its appearance in Android Pie, I always consider 2 button navigation is a bad attempt by Google trying to play catch-up with the fad generated by the iPhone X. However, due to a bug with A13 QPR2 it had to be temporarily removed and many were not happy about this. So, 2 button navigation users, may I ask why do you prefer this method? To me it makes you do more for the same action whilst doesn't save any screen space.

35 comments

I've switched to purely gesture navigation and never looked back. Wouldn't surprise me if they'd remove 2 button too eventually.
Never understood 2 button navigation, it's just a lot of wasted space for just 2 buttons. Gimme 3-4-5 buttons to do useful stuff if you're gonna use the space.
- I felt the same. 3 button do the job quicker (a single tap to get what you want) but occupy a part of the screen. Gesture makes you do more but give you back the screen estate. 2 button seems to combine the downside without offering anything advantageous.
  
  I also find the back gesture to be surprisingly convenient. It's easier to reach, in part because you can reach it from anywhere on either side of the screen. And the gestures from the bottom lets you go back/forward an app, home and also all of the recent apps. And also assistant or an app of your choice by swiping from the bottom corners.
  Plus, on top of that, on LineageOS you can also bind a custom action for a second stage for the back gesture if you swipe it further away, like kill app or go back to the previous app. And left/right side from the top for notifications/quick settings, and swipe at the top for brightness.
  Zero pixels used for what, 9 different actions? It's pretty sweet!
  
  Is the amount of screen being occupied by 3 button navigation bar really that big? It's a few lines of text at most.
- Dedicated buttons for copy, paste, and undo would be amazing. I don't think Android has good support for undo though, it would be cool to undo accidental swipes like when you accidentally swipe away a notification, or if you accidentally tap the space around a dialog box and it disappears
  
  Agreed! I've thought this for a while. It's crazy that iPhone still doesn't have a back button, and it blows me away that neither iOS nor Android have undo or redo.
- I really miss the remappable 5 button nav I had in Android 8...
  
  I was on Lollipop and had root, I had next and previous music buttons on either side, good times
- I want to use gesture navigation without giving up my favorite launcher. Too bad I can never full enjoy it.
  
  Which launcher is that? I love Nova, comes with all the gestures I need.

I will be honest, it's been three phones since I had one that even still showed the option.
It's all either the full 3-button nav, or the proper gesture navigation. 2-button was this hybrid Google did very briefly, but luckily it's gone now.

I'm not using two-button navigation but there was one nice thing it did in Android 9: you could flip the pill to the right and hold it to scroll through open apps until you've reached the app you wanted to switch to (or move your finger left/right to scroll in that direction), and only then lift the finger.
Unfortunately that only worked in Android 9. In Android 10 you could only swipe to the very next app. Not sure why they butchered that carousel navigation; probably to bring it in line with full gesture navigation.

For Android power users like the people on this community, gestures are a no brainer. However for your average user they are undiscoverable and not easy to use. Especially for middle aged and older users.
Hence Samsung uses the 2/3 butto layout by default. My wife is 45 years old and can't use gestures so she's using the 3 buttons.
So is every other middle aged+ person I know.

@NeverSm1le yea, it really sucks. Either 3-buttons or no buttons at all

I never understood it either.
I moved from iPhone 6s to my current phone, a Poco F2 Pro, so it was a no brainer to go with Full Screen Gestures for me since iOS always has been gesture based (regardless of my device having a physical home button).
I think I made the jump when A10 was a thing, so I briefly tried the Android buttons and I wasn't a fan, sadly IT IS YET the only way to have a third party launcher working with nice animations, because Android broke the animations since A11 if I remember correctly.
Every time when I am in a mood to try another Launcher that ain't a stock launcher or Pixel Launcher I go back to the Android buttons, but never to the two buttons.

It's not temporarily removed, it's permanently removed.

I still have a half working version modded into my Pixel 7 Pro. I like the gesture to go home, but I prefer having a back button because with gesture navigation I can't use the pullout menus.
For recents (what's broken, I have to go to the home screen first before I can pull it up) I use it much less frequently and would rather a half swipe to activate.
I really hope the bug gets patched, but I'm expecting it to stop working entirely in Android 14
EDIT; Saw another comment mention the slide on the bottom bar to switch apps, which I also use much more frequently than the recents gesture
- with gesture navigation I can’t use the pullout menus
  You can. Just tap and hold the edge of the screen
  
  Huh, didn't know that. Not the most elegant solution though
  
  Been using gesture nav for a few days and man this is jank. Many times holding the edge activates a long press action on something on the screen. Worst offender being discord. Only reason I'm still using it is that I'm sure I'm going to lose 2 button nav here in the next update or so.

I'm using Oneplus's gesture navigation. I like it because it allows easier one-handed use on huge and unwieldy phones.
- I miss the gesture navigation in my OnePlus 6T. Samsung's gestures are jank. Always activating the back gesture when I don't want it to, and not activating it when I want it to. It likes to get in the way of things that are on the sides of my screen. I can't even scroll through my photos to upload one in Google Messages without the damn thing trying to go back instead. Have to do it carefully and slowly.
  Still better than touchscreen button navigation, though. (Bring back physical buttons!)
  
  Try one hand operation + in good lock. Currently my favorite gesture system, since I don't even have to reach down and can activate multiple actions from the side.

It was nice because it was distinct from Apple's implementation and worked with drawers. It felt like for Android 10, they polled a bunch of already-familiar iOS users to see what gestures felt right.

Tried it, couldn't adapt
I'm sure people who like it will really enjoy and use it, but it's not for me

35 comments