Google's predicitive back gesture to become a default feature in Android 14. Test it now!

In Android 13, Google started work on a feature called  the"predictive back gesture." As you know if you're an Android user, the back gesture can be great allowing you to go back a page with a quick flick of a gesture on the screen. But some Android users are telling Google that "I can’t see that I'm on the last screen prior to the home screen." As a result, some users are backing out of an app by mistake which can skew certain metrics tracked by developers.

But what if there were a way to see exactly where you will end up by going back a page? That's the point of the predictive back gesture. With the feature, Google will show users a sneak peek of the home screen if they're on the last page before it will appear. When the back gesture is made slowly from either the left or right edge, the page of the app you're viewing begins to shrink on the screen revealing what is behind it. It is designed to prevent Android users from accidentally closing an app in the middle of a task.

Not only will Android 14 include the predictive back gesture by default, it will also work within apps to show you exactly where the back gesture is going to take you. Google says that with Android 14, users will have a "similar experience when [users] swipe within the app. Letting users know where the gesture back is going to take them by leveraging default or custom animations."

To test this out on apps that support the predictive back gesture on Android 13 like Google Phone and Google TV, you must first enable Developer options. To do this, go to Settings > About phone > tap "Build number" seven times. From the search bar at the top of the screen type "Predictive back animations." From the Developer options menu, toggle on "Predictive back animations."

Now open the Phone app and slowly use the back gesture from the left or right side of the screen. As the Phone app shrinks, you'll see the home screen in the background. Same with the Google TV app.

The Android 14 developer preview is expected to be disseminated by Google starting this coming February. The company is still in favor of gesture navigation which it calls a "fast, natural, and ergonomic interaction model."