On one hand, scrolling screenshots aren’t exactly new; OEMs have been baking this into their own interpretations of Android for a couple of years now, at least, but Google has avoided doing the same.
Most recently, Google went as far as noting that it was “infeasible” to deliver this in the ANdroid issue tracker (via Android Police), but that wasn’t the end of the story. At Google I/O, Dave Burke, VP Engineering (Android) was asked the question about scrolling screenshots, and it seems he’s taken it on.
In a tweet to Android Police‘s Artem Russakovskii, Dave replied that he’d make it happen, hopefully in time for Android R:
We've added scrollable screenshots to the hopper for Android R and hopefully can land it in that release. Make it so @dsandler 🙂
— Dave Burke (@davey_burke) May 17, 2019
The only sad news is that it’s too late in the cycle to bring the feature to Android Q, which is due for release soon. For those using stock Android, the scrolling screenshots feature, then, will be at least 18 months away, while other OEMs – including Huawei and Samsung – will continue to offer the feature as they have for years.
In some ways stock Android is great, but for real usability, sometimes the OEMs do a better job.
