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Is Google testing the return of an iconic Android icon or was its appearance just a bug?

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By Alan Friedman

Published: Mar 03, 2022, 11:38 PM

The three horizontal line icon, which became known as the hamburger icon because of its resemblance to a hamburger, (the top and bottom lines are the buns and the middle line is the meat), actually has a long past. According to Evernote, the icon was originally created by a gentleman named Norm Cox who created the interface for the Xerox 8010 Information System also known as the Xerox Star.

That computer hit the market all the way back in 1981. Over the subsequent years, the hamburger menu was used on several versions of Windows and was eventually discovered by mobile app designers in 2009 due to the limited screens that mobile apps had to work with. In October 2020, Google did away with the hamburger menu in the Play Store. But a tweet from self-proclaimed nerd @PrajjwalPorwal (via Android Police) revealed that Google could be testing the hamburger icon for the Photos app on Android.

Another app which is apparently testing to bring back the hamburger menu- Google Photos!

Nothing happens though while tapping it!

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cc - @MishaalRahman @AndroidPolice @droid_life @ManuelVonau @AndroidAuth pic.twitter.com/SxK4ftockR
— Prajjwal (@PrajjwalPorwal) March 3, 2022

While a return to Android could be in the making for the icon, used mostly to open a menu or list, tapping it on the Photos app didn't result in anything happening. It didn't show up on the Google Photos app on our Pixel 6 Pro, and this leaves us with a conundrum. Either Google is performing very limited testing with a goal to bring back the hamburger icon, or its appearance on Google Photos was just a bug.

We might not know for some time which answer is correct. If you've seen the hamburger icon return to any Google app on Android lately, drop us a comment in the box below.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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