This week, Google announced that Chrome for Android would finally move the address bar at the bottom of the screen. I say “finally” because the iOS version of Chrome has for two years whole years. Many people have delighted with this change, but I am happy for a very different reason: Google is not forcing Me to use something that I can’t stand.
That’s right. If you are like me, you can just press and keep the address bar and slide it up, where it belongs. Other popular browsers, such as Microsoft Edge for Android And the Samsung Internet browser already allows users to choose where they want the address bar, and I appreciate it when users have the choice in their design of the user interface.
What I don’t like is to have buttons at the bottom of my screen. I rejoiced when navigation based on gestures made its official Android debut in Android 10, giving all phones the possibility of getting rid of these annoying navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen. Then, the application developers had to trample it by moving all the buttons of their applications below.
Tablets at the top, please
As Jerry Hildenbrand of AC said this week when we had the discussion on the buttons below, “any phone with a larger screen than 4 inches needs buttons below.” The idea is that the lower aligned pimples are easier to reach than those at the top, something Steve Jobs and Co. agreed with the first version of iPhone.
The problem is that this is only partially true. Standardized standardized navigation buttons / navigation tabs for applications at the bottom of the screen, because the original iPhone screen was positively tiny by modern standards. Everything on the original iPhone screen was accessible with your thumb, including the rear button on the on the left Corner of the screen, something that no phone can claim today.
If I try to open my phone application from the home screen with one hand, it is already literally impossible. The OnePlus 13 that I use as my daily driver has a screen that is simply too wide for my thumb to reach the phone icon, and it is on the lower left Corner of the screen. No amount of gymnastics finger allows you to touch this icon without entering the phone with my other hand to stabilize it.
Very well, now that the telephone application is open, I realize that this by default “recent”, which is the tab in the middle. If I wanted to access the “Favorites” tab, I should stabilize the phone again with my other hand, then click on it. It beats it whole goal Lower aligned navigation buttons.
If we look back on the Android 4.0 days, I remember how much the “tabs” design was better, if only for a reason: you could slide between them. Some of my arguments against the navigation buttons aligned at the bottom would be canceled if the developers started again to let us slide between the tabs. Head for the time time for 4:56 in this Video of the Galaxy Nexus Ui tour And you will quickly see what I mean.
This is not the only thing people have wanted to bring back in recent years. Cases of clicks bring back the physical pimples. The best multitasking UIS abandon the iOS 10 preview screen inspired for something much more effective and, ironically, older. I could continue with other examples, but you get the point.
The lower aligned pimples also occupy an unnecessary space in a larger part of the screen. We can make fun of everything we want – and we have it – but Apple’s decision to put the Notch ™ at the top of the iPhone display was because the natural vision of people cancels static elements in high of a screen, not from the bottom. Ask most iPhone owners, and they will tell you that they don’t even notice the notch.
But rotate an iPhone and you will suddenly see this big piece of Honkin lacking the display. It is not as if we did not have a lot of screen real estate, but there is no reason why I had to look at static pimples all the time at the bottom of an application. It is a silly use of space.
I would love to have the choice to move these lower aligned buttons at the top, where I think they belong. The Chrome tabs are at the top. The old -fashioned paper folders are at the top. Certain applications, such as Google Drive, use a combination of upper sliding tabs in conjunction with lower aligned buttons.
As usual, what I want is freedom of choice for these user interface elements. Many people like tabs, buttons and addressing bars aligned at the bottom, but I certainly don’t like it, and I don’t like being forced to use them.
Anyway, thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. I will see you all next week.
