14 ANDROID ADVISOR • ISSUE 50HANDS-ON
Animations mean apps now pop up from their
icon and are then dismissed with a sweep to the
left when you press home, with the search bar (still
not removable) and your five chosen apps springing
back into place.
It’s very clean, it’s very Google and it’s more playful
than Oreo’s oddly austere look. But it’s not a huge
redesign, and if you’re a Pixel user you won’t have
trouble adapting.
The volume control is a cool new design too, and
appears at the left of the screen when you press one
of the volume keys. You can tap the top icon to cycle
through sound on, vibrate or silent, while the volume
control is for media playback rather than tones, which
makes much more sense.Gestures
One thing you can turn on that isn’t
on by default is Swipe up on Home
Button – hidden in Settings > System
> Gestures. It replaces the three
Android navigation buttons with
one pill shaped one. You lose the
Overview button altogether, and the
back button only appears when you
have an app open.
This is more to get used to. The pill
is a home button but is that shape toSwipe up on Home Button replaces
three Android navigation buttons