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szczuroarturo @programming.dev

is anyone else bothered by the lack of the 3 buttons at the bottom

So i just bought Asus rog phone 6d and im extremely bothered by the lack of the back ,home and whatewer is the 3 one called buttons on the news androids. Is this something you all got used to with time or does this still bother you( IT really fells much less intuitive compared to the old 3 buttons ,alghtough preferably i would love to have both since the back gesture seems kinda usefull )?

96 comments

  • It's possible to adjust it so you have three little buttons but you can also use gestures from those buttons. Not the sides. I used to use that setup for a long time but know I'm just using the regular gestures for now. By the way I'm on a Samsung Galaxy S20.

    • These settings are samsung specific. Samsung had optional gesture navigation before it was in android. Different gestures though (the 3 button swipe from the bottom option). So nowadays you can choose between the old style samsung gestures, the android gestures and toggle the button row on or off on samsung phones.

  • I used a phone without gestures the other day and had such a hard time with it, it was crazy how unintuitive the buttons felt in comparison to the gestures!

    The simple fact is, neither is actually all that intuitive, they're learned, but gestures definitely get to be very convenient and a much quicker form of navigation.

    I would definitely not want to go back.

    • It's funny, if you swap gestures with buttons in your post, I'd agree 100% lol

      • @Vlhacs Yeah, like I said, we call things intuitive without realizing that nothing in this is intuitive at all, it's all learned behavior.

        For me now, swiping at the edges of the screen makes complete sense and needing to go to a certain place at the bottom of the phone to go back was weird because "why would I go to the bottom of the screen to go backwards, that doesn't make sense", but it was definitely a learning curve to get to this point!

        With all that said, hell, there are still times I really miss the old trackball and full keyboard from the OG G1 (the dedicated hardware button for the camera was nice too, but double tap power isn't terrible). I wouldn't want to give up screen space for the trackball, but damn if it didn't really help with fine navigation and using the phone in the cold!

        Different strokes for different folks, I'm just glad we've got options so we can all be (mostly) happy with how things work!

    • I remember it is especially intuitive when it goes full screen in landscape mode, like I think it needs one swipe and then choosing the needed button (it is better to swipe twice) or deal with the space occupied by the Android buttons on the right edge of your screen... iugh.

      I jumped to the Android bandwagon later (2020) and as I came from iOS I never used them, but I tried them anyway... And they are not for me...

  • I really wanted to like gestures. I used them for over a year.
    \ Even after all that, switching back bottom navigation immediately felt right.

  • I like both but use gestures because I don't want to lose screen space on the bottom. I like full screen apps

  • Nah, I jumped to gestures the first chance I did. 3 button navigation is old school, and on large screen devices, it's not good. Gestures have a larger surface area for activation and require less precise input to active. I also use one-handed mode+ of samsung, so I have the entire 3 sides of the screen to activate as desired. They are just that much intuitive and convenient for me.

  • I very quickly got used to the gesture controls, and now appreciate the extra screen space.

  • Just changed back to buttons thanks to a comment on this post. I had been using gestures since I got my new Pixel mid-July (since my carrier stopped supporting the 3a and gave me a 6a for $50). Never got used to it, constantly kept accidentally swiping to go back while doing other things.

    This isn't quite as good as the 3a, which had buttons for back and home, but swipe up for the app switcher, but it's definitely better than 100% gestures

  • Gestures are great and intuitive, definitely give it a bit more time before changing back imo!

  • I love the gestures themselves. I hate that they "try" to follow device orientation.

    It's a guesswork if the screen is rotated or if the media itself is just so. Also i've had multiple cases where the gesturebar is on the portrait bottom but the gestures are on the landscape.

    Oneplus did it correct when they had their own gestures. The gestures were always on the same spot regardless of the device orientation. You always knew where they were. Also i think they worked in fullscreen apps without first swiping the gesture bar out.

    edit: just wanted to add that i'm on android 12, i don't know if they are less finicky now.

96 comments