Android, Google’s mobile operating system is expected to receive its next substantial upgrade, Android Q, later this year. Google has now finally planned to introduce what iPhone users were enjoying for years. Android Q to natively support the 3D Touch-like feature called “deep press.”
This feature will allow you to perform various actions such as bring up the context menu without having to tap here and there multiple times. Just tell your fingers to put some extra pressure and it’ll do the trick for you. Deep Press will allow users to interact with their device by pressing harder on the screen. The official description mentions it “should be used to accelerate the long press behaviour,” hinting it’ll mostly be used as a replacement for long presses.
It’s still unclear whether this feature will need any specific displays to recognize hard presses, or whether it’ll be able to use existing technology to do so. As we know, some apps can already identify these, as your finger would typically cover a wider surface of the screen when applying more pressure, so there’s a good chance that our current handsets can already work with Deep Press.
Another change introduced in the new version of Android Q comes with a feature Google is dubbing “bubbles” which appears to be determined to provide users with a new way to multitask. Bubbles is quite similar to the Chat Heads tool already offered by Facebook Messenger. Essentially, bubbles allows the user to minimize a message thread with someone down to just their contact photo. Google has branded bubbles a “new way for users to multitask and re-engage” with apps.
Android Q Beta 2 also brings with improved share sheet and also gives apps more control over audio capture through a new MicrophoneDirection API. Developers can now specify a preferred direction of the microphone when trying to capture an audio recording.