Here's how Google is forcing Pixel 4 owners to use gesture navigation
- Voice: Say “Hey Google” or “Ok Google.”
- Squeeze: Squeeze the bottom half of your phone.
- Swipe: Swipe up from the bottom left or right corner of your phone.
- Tap: In the search bar, tap the Assistant Google Assistant.”
Android 10 comes with a full gesture navigation system for Android users
Naturally, it was assumed that Google would follow suit with gestures for its mobile operating system, and with Android 9 a compromise was offered. The latter gave users the opportunity to replace the virtual home button with a pill-shaped button that could be tapped to go home or swiped up to view the multitasking menu. A second swipe up would open the app drawer and a back button was still found at the bottom of the screen. But this two-button system clearly could not be Google’s final solution. So on Android 10, the pill is gone and users swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go home. Swiping up from the bottom about a quarter of the way up the screen will reveal the multitasking menu while swipes up from the bottom left and right corners of the display activate Google Assistant. To go back one page, a user needs to swipe to the left from the right edge or to the right from the left edge. Unfortunately, the “back” gesture can be accidentally triggered while navigating an app or website. To counter this, Google added a sensitivity control to allow users to make adjustments.
Even with the improved gesture navigation system, there are some Android users who would rather stick with the three-button system (back, home and multitask) or Android 9’s two-button option. But for now, Pixel 4 users that want to use Google Assistant on their phone are going to have to learn how to navigate using Google’s gesture system. There is always the possibility that the new Assistant will be made available for button navigation sometime down the road.
Gesture navigation must be selected for Google Assistant to work on the Pixel 4
Again, those with older Pixel models are not affected by this although they will have to deal with the older version of Google Assistant. Google’s support page states that the new Google Assistant requires a Pixel 4 and version 10.73 (and newer) of the Google app. Assistant will not work on a Pixel 4 with a Google Account created for a user’s work or school. In addition, the new Assistant also won’t work on a Pixel 4 if a second Assistant language has been selected; any second language selected must be removed. A third-party launcher can not be employed and features like TalkBack, Voice Access, and Switch Access must be disabled.