The button on smartphones has been completely removed to give a full-screen experience. Google is continuously improving the gesture on Android 14, introducing a new feature that will show you a preview of the screen when you swipe back, called the Predictive Back Gesture.
We have all faced this: when we try to go back to the previous screen, we sometimes don’t know which screen we are jumping to, and this is said to be a problem. This is a serious problem because if you’ve been doing something you don’t want to stop and want to avoid losing any progress, accidental exits, or screen changes, a predictive back gesture could be extremely useful.
The company first introduced the first major improvements with gestures on Android 12, and now, after perfecting them, Google is moving to give it more quality of life improvements. With Android 14, you will now have a clear idea of where a back gesture would take users and make them more aware of it.
Here, the company will implement the predictive back gesture during the transition animation, so that users will have more visual cues for the gesture screen. There have been several updates under the hood, which will make a lot of sense as the other developer previews are released.
This feature was also seen on Android 13 devices, but you had to enable developer mode on those to use it.
You can find it by searching for “predictive back animation” in the “developer option.” The company also shared this in their design for “Designing a High-Quality App with the Latest Android Feature” in 2022 during the Developer Summit. Additionally, Google has added this feature with Android 13 on apps like Google Phone and Google TV for a while now, so when you perform a gesture from the left or right edge of the screen, you will have this
