Google is developing a new gesture to make up for killing a popular Android shortcut

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

When Google created its Circle to Search feature, it wanted to make it as easy as possible to use. A simple long press of the gesture pill or home button invokes Circle to Search over any screen, which is really simple to do. However, by rolling out Circle to Search, Google actually took away one popular method used to invoke the default assistant — long pressing the home button. Fortunately, Google is working on a new Android gesture that’ll invoke the default assistant when using three-button navigation.

The Android operating system offers a number of ways to invoke the default assistant, whether that be Google Assistant, Gemini, Bixby, or some other app. On some devices, you can speak a hotword like “Hey Google” or “Hi Bixby” to invoke Google Assistant/Gemini or Bixby, respectively. Most Android devices, by default, also let you press and hold the power button to launch the default assistant. If you use gesture navigation, meanwhile, you can swipe up from a bottom corner to invoke the assistant.

Before Google rolled out Circle to Search, you could also press and hold the home button when using three-button navigation to invoke the assistant. Circle to Search hijacked this gesture, though, and there currently isn’t a way to restore the old functionality on most devices that have Circle to Search. If you think you can just disable Circle to Search to restore the old functionality, then I’m sorry to say that’s not the case, as disabling Circle to Search simply makes the home button do nothing when long-pressed.

While I was digging through Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3, though, I discovered code for a new corner swipe gesture that lets you invoke the default assistant even when using three-button navigation. This three-button corner swipe gesture isn’t available yet in Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3, but I managed to enable it with a bit of tinkering. Here’s what it looks like in action:

As you can see, the three-button corner swipe gesture works exactly like the existing “swipe to invoke assistant” gesture available with gesture navigation. Just like with gesture navigation, the three-button corner swipe gesture requires you to swipe diagonally upwards from either the left or right bottom corner. It’s easy to know where to start the gesture since most phones have rounded corners, and you only have to swipe a short distance to trigger the assistant.

Since the three-button corner swipe gesture is already fully functional, we probably won’t have to wait long for it to roll out. Given how small of a change it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it in the second quarterly platform release of Android 15. The only thing that Google needs to do before rolling this feature out is to add a toggle for it like it did for gesture navigation.

Hopefully, Android OEMs who brought Circle to Search to their own devices add this three-button corner swipe gesture in the coming weeks rather than wait for it to be included in next year’s Android 16 release. To its credit, OnePlus is already ahead of the curve, as it already implemented its own three-button corner swipe gesture in OxygenOS 15.

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