{"id":93310,"date":"2025-10-22T01:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T01:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93310\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T01:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T01:58:10","slug":"android-finally-lets-you-flip-your-pixels-navigation-buttons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93310\/","title":{"rendered":"Android finally lets you flip your Pixel\u2019s navigation buttons"},"content":{"rendered":"

TL;DR<\/p>\n

Google is adding a new setting to Android that lets you reorder the three-button navigation bar.
\nThis will allow users to switch from the default \u201cBack, Home, Recents\u201d layout to the \u201cRecents, Home, Back\u201d layout common on Samsung phones.
\nThe feature is live in the latest Android Canary build and may roll out to the public in the Android 16 QPR3 release.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve grown accustomed to using the three-button navigation bar on a Samsung phone<\/a>, then you might have a hard time switching to a Google phone<\/a>. That\u2019s because Samsung uses a different layout for its version of the three-button navigation bar. Instead of putting the back button on the left like on stock Android, Samsung puts the back button on the right.<\/p>\n

While Samsung does let you flip the order of these buttons to match stock Android\u2019s layout, the opposite isn\u2019t true. Stock Android doesn\u2019t let you flip these buttons, so people switching from Samsung phones have to either retrain their muscle memory on the new button layout or switch to gesture navigation. To make it easier for Samsung users to switch to Pixel phones, Google is introducing a new Android setting that lets you reorder the buttons in the three-button navigation bar.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/p>\n

\"google\"google<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in August, we found evidence<\/a> within Android code suggesting that the operating system will let you flip the order of the buttons in the navigation bar. Our findings were confirmed by code within the second beta of Android 16 QPR2, which adds a new \u201cbutton order\u201d menu<\/a> that lets you choose between the default \u201cBack, Home, Recents\u201d layout and the flipped \u201cRecents, Home, Back\u201d layout.<\/p>\n

\"Navigation<\/p>\n

Mishaal Rahman \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

Although this new menu was hidden, we managed to enable it for a demonstration, as shown in the video embedded above. We weren\u2019t sure when Google would actually roll this menu out, but thankfully, we didn\u2019t have to wait long. After installing the latest Android Canary release (2510), we discovered that the new \u201cbutton order\u201d menu is now available under Settings > System > Navigation mode > 3-button navigation, and it works just as expected.<\/p>\n

Given that this feature is now live in an Android Canary build, it\u2019ll likely trickle down to the Beta and subsequently the Stable track. Unfortunately, this feature probably won\u2019t make it into the upcoming Android 16 QPR2 update in December, but we might see it in March\u2019s Android 16 QPR3 release. This isn\u2019t the only new customization feature we\u2019re expecting in that update; the new flashlight brightness slider<\/a> is also anticipated for the Android 16 QPR3 release. While a lot can change before March, we hope Google sticks with this feature, as it\u2019s something many people have been looking forward to<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TL;DR Google is adding a new setting to Android that lets you reorder the three-button navigation bar. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[39515,367,3451,342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-93310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android-canary","9":"tag-google","10":"tag-google-pixel","11":"tag-mobile","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}