In case you didn’t know, Gesture Navigation is coming to Android 10 in a big way. Love it or hate it, Gestures are here to stay and they’ll be the default going forward.
One thing that has come out in recent weeks is that – at least in the recent betas and in the launch version of 10 when it comes out – gesture navigation will not be supported for custom launchers. This week, David Burke VP of Engineering for Android confirmed on the All About Android podcast that there will be an update coming after the official launch to enable 3rd party launchers to work with the new gestures.
With 3rd party launchers being so popular in Android, it’s great to see that Google is planning to bring gesture compatibility to the 3rd party launchers. While compatibility won’t be available at launch, it is good to know Google is actively engaging with launcher developers already.
During the interview, Burke also confirmed that the traditional 3 button navigation will definitely remain for accessibility reasons, if not specifically for those of us who don’t want to move on. While we had heard that this was the case, it’s great to hear it confirmed.
