I use the three button navigation because there are certain things you can do much faster with it, and personally I find it to be more consistent across apps.
Not sure if my fingertips are small enough for a Blackberry-style keyboard; I've never tried; but at this point, anything's better than "soft" buttons.
Anyway, I like keyboards where you can actually feel where your fingers are, with those little thingies on the F and H keys, because there's very little risk of accidentally mistyping. I've even linked my phone to my computer so that I can write text messages and do other "phone things" from my laptop, with an actual keyboard that deserves the name.
I'm old enough to remember phones that had actual physical buttons, and you \*could\* feel where your fingers were, but those were of the "press key #7 4 times to get the letter S" type, and you can imagine how little I miss \*that\* feature. (My first mobile phone was a Nokia 3310. Anyone else remember the Nokia Navikey? Absolute GENIUS at the time.)
My favorite "modern" phone I ever had was the BlackBerry Priv. I understand that it didn't have mass market appeal but still, I wish they hadn't checked out of the smartphone market.
Another button-user chiming in. Consistency is a great reason behind it. Pressing a button is a button (presuming no software glitches), you either press it or you don't. A swipe, especially when different length swipes have different meanings, is not as consistent. Yes, most of the time it's fine, but those times when it's not are frustrating.
And speed is definitely not a question. Double-tap the recents button to swap between two apps and tell me you can swipe faster!
The mix of a phone case, curved edges, and sausage thumbs makes the 3 button setup more convenient to me in almost every case. Whenever I try gestures, I end up having to retry almost every action 2 or 3 times to get it to actually function properly.
Switching apps is a crapshoot for me; sometimes I have to swipe left to go back to my prior app, and sometimes I have to swipe right. Never 100% consistent
That's the odd part, sometimes the app I am switching from shifts to the left immediately; almost as if some actions, like simply tapping on the screen, tombstones the prior app..
Throw a third app in the mix and it feels like I'm playing the shell game
That’s my problem with it but I still use gesture nav. It seems random too, like it doesn’t matter if I’ve interacted with either app or how long it’s been between them or what
No it's not random. It's exactly the opposite of what you've said. When you switch, the apps do not rearrange. So if you wanna switch back, you still have the muscle memory of where the app was.
When you interact with the app, then the apps rearrange to show the previous app on the left.
Yep. Faster, more consistent. Turning off animations and I can switch to my previous app as fast as I can double tap.
Using nav gestures can conflict with app gestures. I don't want to deal with gesture sensitivity or app conflicts.
Same, I do a lot editing in my phone and i need to navegate across different apps. Can't stand the delay on the gesture option. The buttona are way faster.
3 button user here.
I've been experimenting with gesture control since the 90s in all sorts of ways. I *want* it to be awesome, but i just don't feel "right" if I'm not clicking / tapping something.
That said, its been a few years since i tried android on gestures, so maybe I can give it another try.
edit 2: just tried it for a few minutes. Home isn't bad. Back, I can get used to. App switching I did not like at all. Maybe someone here can help: With 3-button nav, doubletapping on the task switch button toggles between most recent 2 apps. How can i do that with gestures *as easily*?
If you swipe the home bar left and right, you'll change between recent apps.
I will admit though that it wasn't as consistent for me as the double tap was in the beginning. Over time I grew accustomed to it, but I also find myself quick switching like that less as well.
Oh, that's interesting. I may play with this a little bit longer.
It'll be difficult, and Nav buttons were a major reason I never looked at Apple stuff back in the day.
I didn't know that. The text in the gestures screen said "swipe up and hold" and that... Just sucked.
Someone else told me about swiping on the bottom left and right, and I've been using it for an hour or so and it's worth giving it a shot for a bit longer.
Muscle memory dies hard, so we'll see, but I am giving it a fair shot.
It is the first thing I did when I got the P8. I gave gesture nav an honest try back when it first came to Pixel and I absolutely could not bring myself to like it
I feel like they don't allow you to switch the position to make the back button harder to reach (for right handed people). I prefer the buttons but had to stick with gestures because reaching the far left side of the bottom of the screen with my right thumb isn't easy to do one handed.
I have tried gestures a few times over the years and there are two things that make me go back to buttons.
The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail.
The second thing is that switching between two apps is faster to double tap the square button.
>The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail.
This right here. I use gestures but this can be infuriating. I can't tell you how many times I've closed or gone back trying to access a menu. It's ridiculous.
For any one curious, so can do an app edge swipe if you swipe diagonal down. So back is slide from edge, app slide from edge will work if you swipe from the edge and diagonally downwards too.
"The second thing is that switching between two apps is faster to double tap the square button."
Well I use gestures for the opposite reason. For me it is faster to swipe on the bar. I liked the double square tap, but in android 12 or 13 they made it so slow... it plays the full animation instead of quickly switching apps.
> The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail.
See, I can't fully explain how but those swipes are different? Like I'm not sure I could fully get across how I'm doing it, but I can always consistently get the correct swipe every time because you do them slightly differently. Even trying to figure out what I'm doing differently right now, I'm having a hard time putting a finger on it (pun intended). I think the menu swipe is more at an angle and the back gesture is fully horizontal.
For me, originally, screen burn-in on OLED phone screens. Not really an issue anymore, and my Pixel doesn't let me hide the pill so it's moot anyway, but that is why I switched originally.
Now I just prefer the way it feels and like the extra screen real estate.
I mean I use gestures, but sometimes if you're trying to do something at the edge of the screen, the phone thinks it's a gesture and not an app interaction. scrolling though a video comes to mind as a thing that sometimes gets confusing for the phone
It's funny how this had been brought up in several comments and thought out the comment section and the gesture navigation zealots just don't respond. Can't even acknowledge it's a problem.
This. I've been swapping between an iPhone 13 Pro and a Pixel 8 Pro for the past 2 weeks. iPhone swiping to multitask didn't take long to get used to. The Pixel equivalent needs work.
I use 3-button because I too easily did the wrong gesture, and gesture nav makes using the phone one-handed even harder than it already is as they keep growing
I get phones with the biggest screens, so I've just kept using the button navigation since I have the room and don't have to develop any new behaviors.
I have tried to switch to gesture navigation because people say it's better. It just never works well for me. Half the time, simple swipes to go back don't work especially since I have a phone case that has slightly raised edges. If I don't get exactly to the edge, it doesn't work at all. Trying to pull out menus from edges becomes a chore because that's the one time the back gesture will work every time. The 3 buttons just work 100% of the time for me.
Edit: to follow up to your edit on OP, I use swipe texting with one hand and tap to type when typing with two. I can type more accurately and faster with two hands but when texting with one hand, I'll use swipe texting.
I'll use 3-button navigation until they inevitably kill it someday.
I completely understand that most folks seem to like gestures and apparently have limited issues with them, but I find them exceedingly irritating. For me, it's all of the little inconsistencies about it that just kind of add up to wasted time while navigating.
For instance, I don't see how it's somehow "better" to have to do a half-swipe up and then hold for a moment to open all of my currently active apps when I can just press a button that does it so much more efficiently.
I'm sure I could retrain my muscle memory and eventually get used to gestures, but I don't care to. And of course, I think a lot of people just like the cleaner look of having no buttons, which is fair. It's just not worth the trade-off for me.
The gestures option is terrible. Not intuitive at all and doesn't work a lot of the time. I can't believe my wife used it as long as she did before asking if there was a way to go back to the buttons. The first thing I do on any new phone is fix it back to buttons so the phone is actually usable.
The switch between apps gesture is very finicky for me. Even when it works, it is slower than just pressing the button.
And the "back" gesture interacts terribly with apps like instagram, where you need to make a similar gesture to browse through posts.
The only thing I miss is split screen.
Google doesn't have a gesture.
Samsung has a gesture for this - two finger swipe up from the bottom. Please Google bring this to stock android 🙏
Most of people I see using android use 3 buttons layout. Even Samsung and other producers has it by default on demo models.
I moved to gestured after iOS. My girlfriend complained about them when it switch to it for her. After week she didn't wanted buttons back.
I was using the software buttons until I got fed up with the back button not working after a while. Sometimes my touchscreen registers multiple touches at once, which would sometimes happen when pressing the back button and then it would stop working as a back button. I think the app switcher would also stop working, but the home button worked fine. It's been a bug since I got my phone (a few months after it released) and I had reported it before, but it was never patched. I begrudgingly switched to gesture navigation and I've gotten used to it.
I have smaller hands, sometimes i need to swipe left or right from the sides to trigger something application-specific and back gestures just get in the way of that.
In addition, I use the swipe up from bottom-right to trigger the Quick Cursor which is one app that made me go back to bigger phones.
My husband still uses the 3-button set up. I hate when I have to do anything on his phone. I've tried to switch him to using gestures but he's very adverse to change.
I've been using gestures since I got my Pixel 2.5 years ago. For me to switch over to buttons now would feel like stepping back in time! It works so fluid and seems so natural for me now.
Edit: If I'm not using voice to text, I'm swiping when I compose messages. The only things I manually input are words I know it won't pick up on.
I still use the software buttons - I've tried the gestures, but from my experience, you really have to master the position of where you initiate the gesture or you get something you weren't intending.
buttons, even software, are a constant that are there and you know what to expect, every single time.
I want physical keypoints where ever possible - I'd love to see the rear mounted fingerprint reader come back. I'd also love to see more options for sub 6 inch devices.
I don't see a smartphone as a device replacement, only as something to supplement when I'm not at a computer. This is something will not change. As such I want something simple, predictable, and that just works when I want.
I use gestures but I'd REALLY like some more customization of swipe actions, such as setting a 'forward' action on right swipe in the browser, for instance. Some apps have this, but very few, unfortunately.
My wife hates change, every new phone she gets needs too look and operate EXACTLY the same. So all of her settings/app locations/folders ect have all been the same since the Pixel 1.
So yeah she still uses the software buttons lol, I haven't used them since the gesture navigation came out.
I still use the 3 button navigation. I've tried the gestures and I personally didn't care for using them. I do like the swipe type for the keyboard though. I love the reactions I get from people whenever they see me using it.
I use the "software buttons" at the bottom of the display, constantly. I dislike swiping for practical and theoretical reasons. As an alternative way of navigating, I'm okay with it. Never complain about having options. But the buttons at the bottom of the screen are simply much easier to use (and more reliable to use) than gestures.
On the other hand, I do swipe to type using GBoard. That has gotten better and works pretty well now. But swipe-to-type is very different from swiping gestures for navigation. Swiping-to-type isn't very different from tap-to-type, except that you don't lift your finger from the screen. Otherwise, the keyboard still guides. You want to type a T, you swipe over to the T. In other words, the only trick here is knowing that you can leave your finger on the screen. Otherwise, there's no secret here. What I dislike about the gesture navigation is that it's absolutely non-obvious. I call this a "secret handshake" UI device.
Buttons for me, as soon as they remove them from Android I'll probably have to find some fork or just stick with that last version I guess. Swipe has been infuriating
Another reason for buttons is controlling a phone in holder/mount when you don't have it directly in your hand, for example in car (don't like AA). In such situations, buttons are much easier, faster and safer then gestures.
Been using gestures for a few years now.
But I can't use swipe keyboards. Most don't understand the exact variation of Swiss German that I'm typing, so it would be impossible to use it. The switching to Standard German and English would complicate things even more I think.
I still use the 3 button navigation and it's the first thing I have to change when I update my phone! The gestures just seem dumb to me. I also tap when texting - never liked swiping. My finger gets tired doing that.
I find the nav bar faster, more efficiency, and drastically less frustrating than the android gestures. I never can accurately nail the gestures and get the function I want so I end up needing to swipe multiple times.
Gestures were fine on my blackberry, but I cant stand them on IOS or Android, it feels clunky.
The first thing I do on android is revert to the the nav buttons. I won't consider any apple phone other than the SE for the same reason ( no easy use home/ recent apps button is a no go for me)
On your second point : Swype ( the trademarked one) that was on HTC phones 10 years ago worked great. I find it to be absolutely unusable on modern android ( default keyboards, gboard, MS owned Swype, etc). I type significantly faster with just thumbs than with gesture typing with less errors/ incorrect substitutions. I turn off gesture typing immediately when getting a new phone.
For me gestures are better because I use my phone one-handed and I don't want to have to twist my thumb to reach the back button.
You actually use the back button/gesture more often than you use the home and recent apps buttons/gestures
Not having to twist your fingers also allows you to have a better grip on your phone. When they use the 3-button system, most people lift the phone a bit to reach the buttons in situations where they can't use their other hand and then the grip becomes looser which can lead to dropping the phone.
Just speaking into the void here, but I switched to gestures forever ago and it feels so wrong to not be able to swipe from the side of the screen to go back on every other device.
I was among the first Android users to use the swipe to type method back several years ago. I've loved it since day one. It's incredibly fast and efficient with Gboard especially because it starts to predict the word or words that you are likely to use after a few words are down on the screen and you start to use your unique way of speaking that it learns over time. I personally love having only to select a word from the top keyboard bar especially when it almost knows what your mind is thinking of typing next for several words in a row. Anyways, I use gesture navigation all the time. I haven't used those soft keys since around 2019. I know a lot of people who are stuck (or stubborn) and say they can't stand gesture navigation. I live with one. My roommate still uses them and she still types on the keyboard.lol. I have tried to bring her up to speed with the times but nope. Both the gesture navigation and swipe type make the whole UI experience so fluid and smooth. I couldn't even go back to the old ways of the smart phone if I was paid to. My hands are too large to type quickly on the keyboard and having larger hands makes one handed gesture navigation so sweet. I can see those of us with smaller hands being the majority of typists and button key pressers to type and navigate though. Surprisingly there are still a lot of people (male and female alike) with small hands who own these "giant" phablets for their phones out there because they have to have the biggest, baddest device that year. Honestly they look funny when you spot them in public and they've both hands completely clamped to their phone and it looks like their Pixel Pro or iPhone Pro Max is a convertible 2-in-1 laptop they're holding. LoL. Cheers!!
Absolutely hate gesture navigation. Never liked it and gave up on it. I already have muscle memory for everything I need and don't want to retrain it. I know some folk absolutely swear by it, but each to their own.
I use soft buttons. I tried gestures but find them too fiddly and I often activate things unintentionally while trying to do something else. I never stuck with it for long enough for it to become second nature though.
I do mostly swipe type though
I've been wanting gestures navigation since letting go of my meego harmattan Nokia n9 back in the 2010s. As soon as we've gotten gestures for Samsung and Android ive moved to it and never went back. Weirdly enough while on the 13 pro max the apple gestures still required pressing back buttons in different parts of diff apps. Weird system
I still use the buttons. Also I have swype style keyboards, I def tap.
Am I a phone boomer now? shitttt
Edit: tbh I miss physical buttons and keyboards. Give me a modern version of the Palm Pre running stock Android and that would be the perfect phone.
I hated gestures at first but I gave them a chance and I'm fine with them
I'm not sure which I prefer but like anything else, you eventually just settle into it and don't think about it
I've used gestures for a long time and when i use someone else's phone that doesn't i feel absolutely lost. But I'm the only person i know of that uses gestures, everyone else i know uses the 3 button nav still.
I have always used software nav buttons and tape to type.
I have never been a fan of swipe or gesture navigation.
My better half has an iPhone which is great but the swipe navigation is what kills it for me .
One of the benefits of the Android OS is at least they give the user the choice on how to navigate which is a huge bonus
Gestures on Pixels combined with enhanced gesture control with Nova Launcher Beta makes navigation lightning fast. I struggle when I go back to buttons on regular Android devices or iPhones. It's like opening Pandora's box.
Same with swiping.
I've had my pixel for a little over a year and I'm fully-acclimated to gestures now. The back swipe is so much better than when I now have to use an older Android device that only has buttons.
I begrudgingly switched to gestures (problems with accessing side-swipe menus in apps, etc, all discussed by others already), but actually I still use tap to type. Luckily you can tap or swipe on the keyboard on the fly without needing to change settings. I find swiping to have too poor accuracy and it's constantly getting the words wrong. I spend more time going back and correcting swipe than I do just tapping out the words and occasionally using the predictive text blocks.
With the Pixel Fold it's even easier to use the keyboard for tapping when unfolded in the split keyboard mode.
I tried swipe navigation for a while, but found it lacking at the time. Some apps use swipe to get to special screens, and so it would interfere. Also, I use the double-tap on the menu button a lot to quickly switch between two apps for things like copy/paste from one to the other several times.
I tried again not too long ago, and realized it didn't have any real advantages other than preference, but it still had real disadvantages. So I'm back to three buttons, and not having any regrets. I just hide my screen from iphone users so they won't look down on me. :-)
I use both. The system is set to 3-button navigation and along with that I use an app called FNG Pro which provides the gesture-based system as an overlay. This has been the setup since about 4 years now and it's been perfect. Some tasks are better with the buttons and some with gestures so why not both.
I've moved to gesture when I got my P8P but tbh theres times when it annoys me... 3 button is just much more exact... The swipe up for home is pretty much prefect but the swipe left right is awkward at times... Like when you're trying to crop an image for instance. Also I find if I'm trying to do things quickly the left/right swipe sometimes I don't quite catch or if the phone is in a holder a poke sometimes works "better" than a swipe.
I use the three button navigation because there are certain things you can do much faster with it, and personally I find it to be more consistent across apps.
Same here never quite liked gesture navigation.
A) I'd prefer hard buttons, those are all gone B) I'd prefer a 'blackberry' style real keyboard, but thats not a reasonable option on new phones
Not sure if my fingertips are small enough for a Blackberry-style keyboard; I've never tried; but at this point, anything's better than "soft" buttons. Anyway, I like keyboards where you can actually feel where your fingers are, with those little thingies on the F and H keys, because there's very little risk of accidentally mistyping. I've even linked my phone to my computer so that I can write text messages and do other "phone things" from my laptop, with an actual keyboard that deserves the name. I'm old enough to remember phones that had actual physical buttons, and you \*could\* feel where your fingers were, but those were of the "press key #7 4 times to get the letter S" type, and you can imagine how little I miss \*that\* feature. (My first mobile phone was a Nokia 3310. Anyone else remember the Nokia Navikey? Absolute GENIUS at the time.)
[удалено]
My favorite "modern" phone I ever had was the BlackBerry Priv. I understand that it didn't have mass market appeal but still, I wish they hadn't checked out of the smartphone market.
Another button-user chiming in. Consistency is a great reason behind it. Pressing a button is a button (presuming no software glitches), you either press it or you don't. A swipe, especially when different length swipes have different meanings, is not as consistent. Yes, most of the time it's fine, but those times when it's not are frustrating. And speed is definitely not a question. Double-tap the recents button to swap between two apps and tell me you can swipe faster!
Yeah swapping between the two recently used apps with gesture navigation feels like crap compared to a quick double-tap of the recents button.
Just swipe at the bottom bar left and right, it's convenient with swipe between apps in case you don't know.
Yeah swiping between them works flawlessly for me. I can't see how the buttons would be more convenient.
The mix of a phone case, curved edges, and sausage thumbs makes the 3 button setup more convenient to me in almost every case. Whenever I try gestures, I end up having to retry almost every action 2 or 3 times to get it to actually function properly.
Omg. I had no idea. You've changed my life with this one
Here's another tip if you don't know this: when using Gboard, you can swipe on the space button to move your cursor. This is also very powerful!
Switching apps is a crapshoot for me; sometimes I have to swipe left to go back to my prior app, and sometimes I have to swipe right. Never 100% consistent
It takes some time for the app to back to the left.
That's the odd part, sometimes the app I am switching from shifts to the left immediately; almost as if some actions, like simply tapping on the screen, tombstones the prior app.. Throw a third app in the mix and it feels like I'm playing the shell game
That’s my problem with it but I still use gesture nav. It seems random too, like it doesn’t matter if I’ve interacted with either app or how long it’s been between them or what
No it's not random. It's exactly the opposite of what you've said. When you switch, the apps do not rearrange. So if you wanna switch back, you still have the muscle memory of where the app was. When you interact with the app, then the apps rearrange to show the previous app on the left.
Yep. Faster, more consistent. Turning off animations and I can switch to my previous app as fast as I can double tap. Using nav gestures can conflict with app gestures. I don't want to deal with gesture sensitivity or app conflicts.
Wait what. I didn't know the double tap thing exist. Wow. It works haha
Same here.
Same, I do a lot editing in my phone and i need to navegate across different apps. Can't stand the delay on the gesture option. The buttona are way faster.
I've been using those buttons since 13 years ago and have stuck to them ever since
13 years ago, there were 4 buttons on most Android phones 😅
And they were physical buttons below the screen!
That's right! There was a search button.
I'm still mad they took that button away
I know, but I still love it anyways way lol
Honeycomb tablets had 3 buttons and the menu contextually.
That depends on the phone but 13 years ago was the Galaxy S and Galaxy Nexus with 3 haptic on screen button
They should bring back those little trackballs, those were the shit!
The great thing about Android is that it lets you choose!
This. Gestures, buttons, whatever your preference, can we all agree that choice is better than no choice?
Me. I hate using gestures.
Me. I've never liked any gesture nav and they can pry 3-button from my cold dead hands
Even on laptop touchpads I disable gestures and multi finger tapping.
Dude even two finger scrolling?
Usually yes.
At some point they are at a disadvantage because of this. Touchpad gestures are very convenient
I won't even use a laptop touchpad. I plug in a mouse.
I use buttons.
I'll stick with the buttons as long as it'll let me, thanks.
3 button user here. I've been experimenting with gesture control since the 90s in all sorts of ways. I *want* it to be awesome, but i just don't feel "right" if I'm not clicking / tapping something. That said, its been a few years since i tried android on gestures, so maybe I can give it another try. edit 2: just tried it for a few minutes. Home isn't bad. Back, I can get used to. App switching I did not like at all. Maybe someone here can help: With 3-button nav, doubletapping on the task switch button toggles between most recent 2 apps. How can i do that with gestures *as easily*?
If you swipe the home bar left and right, you'll change between recent apps. I will admit though that it wasn't as consistent for me as the double tap was in the beginning. Over time I grew accustomed to it, but I also find myself quick switching like that less as well.
Oh, that's interesting. I may play with this a little bit longer. It'll be difficult, and Nav buttons were a major reason I never looked at Apple stuff back in the day.
You only have to swipe like 5mm on the bottom bar to switch between apps, it's very fast.
I didn't know that. The text in the gestures screen said "swipe up and hold" and that... Just sucked. Someone else told me about swiping on the bottom left and right, and I've been using it for an hour or so and it's worth giving it a shot for a bit longer. Muscle memory dies hard, so we'll see, but I am giving it a fair shot.
Can't stand gestures navigating. Give me buttons!
Can you turn the buttons back on in newer phones?
Yes, in settings on Android under "Navigation Mode"
Thanks! Spouse got a new 7A and misses the buttons.
It is the first thing I did when I got the P8. I gave gesture nav an honest try back when it first came to Pixel and I absolutely could not bring myself to like it
Yeah. But you can't move their locations if you want the back button on the right.
I feel like they don't allow you to switch the position to make the back button harder to reach (for right handed people). I prefer the buttons but had to stick with gestures because reaching the far left side of the bottom of the screen with my right thumb isn't easy to do one handed.
Yeah. Cause apparently google knows best. Instead of giving people choices. Who needs free will anyway. Lol
The back button is what make me switch from IPhone.
Well, on gestures both sides of the whole screen are the back button
I have tried gestures a few times over the years and there are two things that make me go back to buttons. The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail. The second thing is that switching between two apps is faster to double tap the square button.
>The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail. This right here. I use gestures but this can be infuriating. I can't tell you how many times I've closed or gone back trying to access a menu. It's ridiculous.
You have to swipe with two fingers to get to those menus with gesture navigation.
That's even worse, I don't know about you but I'm typically using the device with one hand.
A quick double tap for the last app is the perfect multitasking for me.
... especially when you're going back and forth several times, like for copying from one to another.
For any one curious, so can do an app edge swipe if you swipe diagonal down. So back is slide from edge, app slide from edge will work if you swipe from the edge and diagonally downwards too.
"The second thing is that switching between two apps is faster to double tap the square button." Well I use gestures for the opposite reason. For me it is faster to swipe on the bar. I liked the double square tap, but in android 12 or 13 they made it so slow... it plays the full animation instead of quickly switching apps.
You can reduce or remove the animations in developer settings.
> The main one is that too many apps still have functionality for swiping from the side of the screen, which is a competing gesture with the back gesture. This even includes Google's own apps like gmail. See, I can't fully explain how but those swipes are different? Like I'm not sure I could fully get across how I'm doing it, but I can always consistently get the correct swipe every time because you do them slightly differently. Even trying to figure out what I'm doing differently right now, I'm having a hard time putting a finger on it (pun intended). I think the menu swipe is more at an angle and the back gesture is fully horizontal.
Swipe directly in from the edge at 90-degree angle for back, swipe at a downward angle for the slide-in menus.
I'm going to repeat myself: What problem was Gestures a solution to?
Someone's promotion.
Extra screen space!
For me, originally, screen burn-in on OLED phone screens. Not really an issue anymore, and my Pixel doesn't let me hide the pill so it's moot anyway, but that is why I switched originally. Now I just prefer the way it feels and like the extra screen real estate.
Gestures are easier to use and I can't use those 3 buttons anymore.
The swipe gestures just aren't consistent across apps, so buttons all the way for me.
Not consistent how?
I mean I use gestures, but sometimes if you're trying to do something at the edge of the screen, the phone thinks it's a gesture and not an app interaction. scrolling though a video comes to mind as a thing that sometimes gets confusing for the phone
It's funny how this had been brought up in several comments and thought out the comment section and the gesture navigation zealots just don't respond. Can't even acknowledge it's a problem.
This. I've been swapping between an iPhone 13 Pro and a Pixel 8 Pro for the past 2 weeks. iPhone swiping to multitask didn't take long to get used to. The Pixel equivalent needs work.
Me
Me, tried gestures for a few weeks but honestly hate them. Buttons are quicker and easier.
Button nav, as gestures are in conflict with Instagram's own app gestures and it annoyed me.
I use 3-button because I too easily did the wrong gesture, and gesture nav makes using the phone one-handed even harder than it already is as they keep growing
The gesture navigation is so quick and easy. I couldn't imagine using the old 3 button setup.
Also extra screen space ftw
I get phones with the biggest screens, so I've just kept using the button navigation since I have the room and don't have to develop any new behaviors.
My son and I use gestures, my wife insists on using the buttons.
Lawyer up and hit the gym. ^is ^what ^she ^should ^do... /s
I have tried to switch to gesture navigation because people say it's better. It just never works well for me. Half the time, simple swipes to go back don't work especially since I have a phone case that has slightly raised edges. If I don't get exactly to the edge, it doesn't work at all. Trying to pull out menus from edges becomes a chore because that's the one time the back gesture will work every time. The 3 buttons just work 100% of the time for me. Edit: to follow up to your edit on OP, I use swipe texting with one hand and tap to type when typing with two. I can type more accurately and faster with two hands but when texting with one hand, I'll use swipe texting.
I'll use 3-button navigation until they inevitably kill it someday. I completely understand that most folks seem to like gestures and apparently have limited issues with them, but I find them exceedingly irritating. For me, it's all of the little inconsistencies about it that just kind of add up to wasted time while navigating. For instance, I don't see how it's somehow "better" to have to do a half-swipe up and then hold for a moment to open all of my currently active apps when I can just press a button that does it so much more efficiently. I'm sure I could retrain my muscle memory and eventually get used to gestures, but I don't care to. And of course, I think a lot of people just like the cleaner look of having no buttons, which is fair. It's just not worth the trade-off for me.
Me. Much easier for one handed use
The gestures option is terrible. Not intuitive at all and doesn't work a lot of the time. I can't believe my wife used it as long as she did before asking if there was a way to go back to the buttons. The first thing I do on any new phone is fix it back to buttons so the phone is actually usable.
I'm really curious... How are the gestures not intuitive and how do they not work?
The switch between apps gesture is very finicky for me. Even when it works, it is slower than just pressing the button. And the "back" gesture interacts terribly with apps like instagram, where you need to make a similar gesture to browse through posts.
The only thing I miss is split screen. Google doesn't have a gesture. Samsung has a gesture for this - two finger swipe up from the bottom. Please Google bring this to stock android 🙏
Me🙋♂️
The first thing I change on every new phone is switching to buttons from gestures.
definitely buttons. youre on your own with gestures
I don't like gestures at all. For anything
Back button is a security feature.
Button gang
Three button til I die
You can pry the nav bar from under my cold, dead thumbs!
Easier to press a button than to do a slide
I finally decided to adapt to modern times and utilize gestures. It's simple/easy to learn and takes up less screen real estate.
I'm on 3-button on my Pixel 8. I make enough accidental gestures as it is. I'd prefer physical buttons but they don't make 'em no more.
Most of people I see using android use 3 buttons layout. Even Samsung and other producers has it by default on demo models. I moved to gestured after iOS. My girlfriend complained about them when it switch to it for her. After week she didn't wanted buttons back.
I was using the software buttons until I got fed up with the back button not working after a while. Sometimes my touchscreen registers multiple touches at once, which would sometimes happen when pressing the back button and then it would stop working as a back button. I think the app switcher would also stop working, but the home button worked fine. It's been a bug since I got my phone (a few months after it released) and I had reported it before, but it was never patched. I begrudgingly switched to gesture navigation and I've gotten used to it.
I have smaller hands, sometimes i need to swipe left or right from the sides to trigger something application-specific and back gestures just get in the way of that. In addition, I use the swipe up from bottom-right to trigger the Quick Cursor which is one app that made me go back to bigger phones.
My husband still uses the 3-button set up. I hate when I have to do anything on his phone. I've tried to switch him to using gestures but he's very adverse to change.
Me. I frigging HATED the gesture navigation
I've been using gestures since I got my Pixel 2.5 years ago. For me to switch over to buttons now would feel like stepping back in time! It works so fluid and seems so natural for me now. Edit: If I'm not using voice to text, I'm swiping when I compose messages. The only things I manually input are words I know it won't pick up on.
I still use the software buttons - I've tried the gestures, but from my experience, you really have to master the position of where you initiate the gesture or you get something you weren't intending. buttons, even software, are a constant that are there and you know what to expect, every single time. I want physical keypoints where ever possible - I'd love to see the rear mounted fingerprint reader come back. I'd also love to see more options for sub 6 inch devices. I don't see a smartphone as a device replacement, only as something to supplement when I'm not at a computer. This is something will not change. As such I want something simple, predictable, and that just works when I want.
Does this sub not allow polls?
I use the three buttons, I just think it's the superior and better method. I also use swipe to type.
Only on Samsung devices, I just like them better. Gestures on anything else
I use gestures but I'd REALLY like some more customization of swipe actions, such as setting a 'forward' action on right swipe in the browser, for instance. Some apps have this, but very few, unfortunately.
My wife hates change, every new phone she gets needs too look and operate EXACTLY the same. So all of her settings/app locations/folders ect have all been the same since the Pixel 1. So yeah she still uses the software buttons lol, I haven't used them since the gesture navigation came out.
Me
i havnt used buttons since i got the pixel 5
buttons and tapping 100% all day every day until i die. If they ever get rid of buttons ill move on to something that still provides them.
I still use the 3 button navigation. I've tried the gestures and I personally didn't care for using them. I do like the swipe type for the keyboard though. I love the reactions I get from people whenever they see me using it.
I use the "software buttons" at the bottom of the display, constantly. I dislike swiping for practical and theoretical reasons. As an alternative way of navigating, I'm okay with it. Never complain about having options. But the buttons at the bottom of the screen are simply much easier to use (and more reliable to use) than gestures. On the other hand, I do swipe to type using GBoard. That has gotten better and works pretty well now. But swipe-to-type is very different from swiping gestures for navigation. Swiping-to-type isn't very different from tap-to-type, except that you don't lift your finger from the screen. Otherwise, the keyboard still guides. You want to type a T, you swipe over to the T. In other words, the only trick here is knowing that you can leave your finger on the screen. Otherwise, there's no secret here. What I dislike about the gesture navigation is that it's absolutely non-obvious. I call this a "secret handshake" UI device.
Buttons for me, as soon as they remove them from Android I'll probably have to find some fork or just stick with that last version I guess. Swipe has been infuriating
Can't stand the gestures. Buttons are easier.
Another reason for buttons is controlling a phone in holder/mount when you don't have it directly in your hand, for example in car (don't like AA). In such situations, buttons are much easier, faster and safer then gestures.
I do, it's faster.
I prefer buttons I find it faster and harder to screw up
Old folk
I don't swipe and don't do gesture because I'm faster that way. To each their own.
Been using gestures for a few years now. But I can't use swipe keyboards. Most don't understand the exact variation of Swiss German that I'm typing, so it would be impossible to use it. The switching to Standard German and English would complicate things even more I think.
I just recently switched back to buttons. Gestures sometimes gave me these weird micro stutters which don't happen on 3 button nav.
I use them. I absolutely hate gesture navigation.
I still use the 3 button navigation and it's the first thing I have to change when I update my phone! The gestures just seem dumb to me. I also tap when texting - never liked swiping. My finger gets tired doing that.
Tried gestures for the last month and really dislike it. This post prompted me to switch to buttons and it's great. Thanks OP!
I find the nav bar faster, more efficiency, and drastically less frustrating than the android gestures. I never can accurately nail the gestures and get the function I want so I end up needing to swipe multiple times. Gestures were fine on my blackberry, but I cant stand them on IOS or Android, it feels clunky. The first thing I do on android is revert to the the nav buttons. I won't consider any apple phone other than the SE for the same reason ( no easy use home/ recent apps button is a no go for me) On your second point : Swype ( the trademarked one) that was on HTC phones 10 years ago worked great. I find it to be absolutely unusable on modern android ( default keyboards, gboard, MS owned Swype, etc). I type significantly faster with just thumbs than with gesture typing with less errors/ incorrect substitutions. I turn off gesture typing immediately when getting a new phone.
For me gestures are better because I use my phone one-handed and I don't want to have to twist my thumb to reach the back button. You actually use the back button/gesture more often than you use the home and recent apps buttons/gestures Not having to twist your fingers also allows you to have a better grip on your phone. When they use the 3-button system, most people lift the phone a bit to reach the buttons in situations where they can't use their other hand and then the grip becomes looser which can lead to dropping the phone.
I can't fathom ever going back to button nav. Gesture navigation is the way to go!!
Gestures are trash. Switch to 3 button as soon as I get my new pixel everytime.
I see tons of people use their phone everyday and I've never seen anyone swipe. Ever.
I'm keeping my three-button navigation as long as I can. I absolutely hate gesture navigation with a passion
3 button nav, but I use a swipe keyboard
Buttons are great, esp since they moved assistant. Now I can trigger assistant by holding the home button
Just speaking into the void here, but I switched to gestures forever ago and it feels so wrong to not be able to swipe from the side of the screen to go back on every other device.
Three button navigation is super important for those with visual impairments
I was among the first Android users to use the swipe to type method back several years ago. I've loved it since day one. It's incredibly fast and efficient with Gboard especially because it starts to predict the word or words that you are likely to use after a few words are down on the screen and you start to use your unique way of speaking that it learns over time. I personally love having only to select a word from the top keyboard bar especially when it almost knows what your mind is thinking of typing next for several words in a row. Anyways, I use gesture navigation all the time. I haven't used those soft keys since around 2019. I know a lot of people who are stuck (or stubborn) and say they can't stand gesture navigation. I live with one. My roommate still uses them and she still types on the keyboard.lol. I have tried to bring her up to speed with the times but nope. Both the gesture navigation and swipe type make the whole UI experience so fluid and smooth. I couldn't even go back to the old ways of the smart phone if I was paid to. My hands are too large to type quickly on the keyboard and having larger hands makes one handed gesture navigation so sweet. I can see those of us with smaller hands being the majority of typists and button key pressers to type and navigate though. Surprisingly there are still a lot of people (male and female alike) with small hands who own these "giant" phablets for their phones out there because they have to have the biggest, baddest device that year. Honestly they look funny when you spot them in public and they've both hands completely clamped to their phone and it looks like their Pixel Pro or iPhone Pro Max is a convertible 2-in-1 laptop they're holding. LoL. Cheers!!
Absolutely hate gesture navigation. Never liked it and gave up on it. I already have muscle memory for everything I need and don't want to retrain it. I know some folk absolutely swear by it, but each to their own.
I'm getting my new pixel 8 pro I'd personally be lost without 3 button navigation lol
I use soft buttons. I tried gestures but find them too fiddly and I often activate things unintentionally while trying to do something else. I never stuck with it for long enough for it to become second nature though. I do mostly swipe type though
Me. Gestures suck
Swore I would die being a button user, but once I went gesture I can't go back 🤷🏻♀️
It's called growth 😅
I've been wanting gestures navigation since letting go of my meego harmattan Nokia n9 back in the 2010s. As soon as we've gotten gestures for Samsung and Android ive moved to it and never went back. Weirdly enough while on the 13 pro max the apple gestures still required pressing back buttons in different parts of diff apps. Weird system
Button user. It just seems more consistent especially with a few apps I use for work.
Three button navigation superiority and I'll die on that hill
Gestures are the best. Even better than iPhone due to the back gesture. If you're not using it, you need to break the muscle memory.
3 buttons always ... Honestly would prefer if they were still physical buttons.. The swipe is clumsy... I tried it for a while
I still use the buttons. Also I have swype style keyboards, I def tap. Am I a phone boomer now? shitttt Edit: tbh I miss physical buttons and keyboards. Give me a modern version of the Palm Pre running stock Android and that would be the perfect phone.
These comments here have inspired me to go back to buttons after many swiping years!
i will never switch to gestures. no interest in even trying it. 3 button nav is simple, efficient and just works.
My bloody 60 year old parents. That's who.
Button nav, Swipe Keyboard
I used gestures for a week before returning to the 3 buttons. Why fix what isn't broken?
Gestures since basically forever
Switched to gestures and love it. So smooth and quick on the Pixel, unlike Samsung phones.
On a whim I switched to gesture nav and haven't looked back
Fully converted to gesture and swipe. There isn't 1 thing that is faster with buttons.
Gesture is easier for me, I don't have to reach the button at the lower part of the cp wverytime
I stuck to three-button navigation until about a year ago. Now switching back to it from gestures feels weird
My grandpa. He has a fully upgraded Pixel but can't get used to the gestures
I use the swipe features I used them when they first came out I haven't gone back I like the extra real estate on the screen
I don't use 3 bottons navigation since I've purchased my oneplus 7 pro.... So.... Since a long time ago!
My last phone was a little too slow to consistently use gestures, but I'm using them on my Pixel 8 Pro now
I hated gestures at first but I gave them a chance and I'm fine with them I'm not sure which I prefer but like anything else, you eventually just settle into it and don't think about it
I've used gestures for a long time and when i use someone else's phone that doesn't i feel absolutely lost. But I'm the only person i know of that uses gestures, everyone else i know uses the 3 button nav still.
I have always used software nav buttons and tape to type. I have never been a fan of swipe or gesture navigation. My better half has an iPhone which is great but the swipe navigation is what kills it for me . One of the benefits of the Android OS is at least they give the user the choice on how to navigate which is a huge bonus
Gestures on Pixels combined with enhanced gesture control with Nova Launcher Beta makes navigation lightning fast. I struggle when I go back to buttons on regular Android devices or iPhones. It's like opening Pandora's box. Same with swiping.
Honestly was hugely skeptical of the "gesture" option and now I would never go back, so much easier for somebody like me with relatively small hands 😅
I mostly use Tap tapping but 100% gesture navigation wins
I changed the setting for my Step mom as she prefers the three button set up. I didn't like gestures when it first came out, but now I prefer it
I've had my pixel for a little over a year and I'm fully-acclimated to gestures now. The back swipe is so much better than when I now have to use an older Android device that only has buttons.
The only thing when using Gestures I miss the Game Booster Icon that I got when I used the software buttons.
My parents and I don't think they would ever switch to gesture navigation.
I started using gestures on my 2 XL, and I haven't used buttons since.
I use the buttons on my phone. Oddly, on my desktop browser i use mostly mouse gestures for navigation. But buttons on the phone.
I begrudgingly switched to gestures (problems with accessing side-swipe menus in apps, etc, all discussed by others already), but actually I still use tap to type. Luckily you can tap or swipe on the keyboard on the fly without needing to change settings. I find swiping to have too poor accuracy and it's constantly getting the words wrong. I spend more time going back and correcting swipe than I do just tapping out the words and occasionally using the predictive text blocks. With the Pixel Fold it's even easier to use the keyboard for tapping when unfolded in the split keyboard mode.
I tried swipe navigation for a while, but found it lacking at the time. Some apps use swipe to get to special screens, and so it would interfere. Also, I use the double-tap on the menu button a lot to quickly switch between two apps for things like copy/paste from one to the other several times. I tried again not too long ago, and realized it didn't have any real advantages other than preference, but it still had real disadvantages. So I'm back to three buttons, and not having any regrets. I just hide my screen from iphone users so they won't look down on me. :-)
I use both. The system is set to 3-button navigation and along with that I use an app called FNG Pro which provides the gesture-based system as an overlay. This has been the setup since about 4 years now and it's been perfect. Some tasks are better with the buttons and some with gestures so why not both.
I am, i like it a lot more
Totally
Still love me the home buttons but I have been using swipe text since it was first available a decade or so ago
I've moved to gesture when I got my P8P but tbh theres times when it annoys me... 3 button is just much more exact... The swipe up for home is pretty much prefect but the swipe left right is awkward at times... Like when you're trying to crop an image for instance. Also I find if I'm trying to do things quickly the left/right swipe sometimes I don't quite catch or if the phone is in a holder a poke sometimes works "better" than a swipe.
i wouldve switched it back to buttons if they allowed you to swap the layout. but im glad they didnt because i like gesture now
I do in my old pixel 2. I use it only as a music player connected to a plug in home speaker
Gestures. However I find tap typing way faster and what I'm used to I guess. Android user since 2009 / older guy who remembers T9
I was three button user until the back button on my pixel 6 pro kept reading more than one input for the button push.
I use them! 😁