For many years, the way to open the app drawer on Android was to press the corresponding app drawer button: a circular button with six dots inside. said button gave way to swiping up to show app drawer, and since then he was missing. He is back.
Android 13 Developer Preview 2 brings back the app drawer button and with a refreshed design with Material You, but not for all users. Displayed in the new bottom “taskbar”, which is only present on terminals with large screen
The legendary app drawer button returns
the app drawer button has accompanied Android for many years as the standard way to display all the applications installed on the mobile, unlike those that we have put more easily on the home screen or in the Dock. It is precisely in this Dock where this button was usually located, centered or in a corner, depending on the layer.
Nothing is forever, and after Google replaced it with swipe up In Pixel Launcher, it wasn’t long before it was the new normal, whether you used mobile gestures or the navigation bar. The button is still an option in launchers like Nova Launcher, but it cannot be said to be going through its moment of peak popularity.
They thought it was dead, and with Android 13 it came back. More or less. As of the second Developer Preview, the mythical button is added to the bottom bar, the one that appears when you open an application on a device with a large screen, such as a tablet.
This button is added to the right side of this bar’s icon strip, which acts similarly to the Windows taskbar as a quick way to open other applications, whether they are already open or not. . The icons shown here are the dock icons, but opening an app adds the drawer icon. As expected, the button opens the app drawer
The design is almost the same as always, although if we look closely we will realize that the dots inside the icon itself have colors. It’s not clear if the colors match the Material You palette or are fixed.
The lower taskbar only appears on devices with a large screenso the return to buttons is relegated to tablets, foldables and the like, a return to “basics” that’s likely to resonate with those who prefer buttons to gestures.
Through | AndroidPolice