Apple introduced gestures based navigation system with iPhone X last year in September, Android device manufacturers didn’t want to remain behind in the race and so various OEMs started adopting the trend earlier this year and enabled gestures based navigation on taller devices with 18:9 aspect ratio to make single hand operation more comfortable. Google also announced new system navigation gestures with Android Pie Beta back in May to simplify multitasking experience, but gestures based navigation is available only in devices with 18:9 aspect ratio.
In case you have a device with a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio and wish to experience gesture-based navigation, you need to explore various apps available on Google Play Store. Developers at XDA have created an app called Navigation Gestures which enables gestures on any device without rooting or flashing zip by custom recovery.
Install the app from Google Play Store here, note that this is the free version and it has limited customization options if you wish to get access to all the feature you might consider purchasing premium add-on package which costs Rs 100. After installing the app, make sure to give the required permissions to the app, the app requires following permissions,
The app also needs a permission to hide stock navigation bar on the device, which can be done by running an adb command in terminal after connecting the phone to PC/Laptop.
The app adds a custom quick settings tile in status, the feature to add custom quick settings tile is available on devices running on Android 7.0 or above, but it’s not enabled on MIUI.
The app also shows few warnings before you finish setup, it’s important to disable the Navigation Gestures in case a user decides to uninstall the app.
The app shows a pill at the bottom which can be set to hide when it’s inactive, users can assign custom gestures such as tap, double tap, swipe left, swipe right, swipe up, long press on the pill.
Each custom gesture can be assigned to a custom action such as Home, Back, Recent apps, Split Screen, Assistant and more. Some of these actions can be used only after purchasing the premium add-on package.
Users can also customize the appearance of pill such as Color, Width, Height, Horizontal and Vertical positions.
We tested the app on devices running Stock Android, MIUI and EMUI and didn’t face any issue, the app gets killed automatically on MIUI due to its aggressive battery saving, so users need to turn off battery restrictions for the app and add the app to Autostart.