Now that Lollipop has officially been released as a final image. Well at least it has for the Nexus 5 and 7 the internet is awash with reports on the features, what to expect and what’s new. Now its time for some more Lollipop feature changes and this time its the ‘recents’ screen. Everyone does know what the recents screen is right? If not it’s the screen where you can bring up and it shows all the recent or opened apps allowing for quick change between them. If like me by the time you click on this there are usually twenty to thirty apps all listed it takes me a good few minutes to swipe them all away. Yes, I know there is a ‘clear all’ button but for some reason I like the swipe action. If you remember, this feature always used the standard little box within a box icon down at the bottom of the screen (along with the back, menu and home icons). Once it was clicked on the recents would all pop up (usually on the right hand side) as small window based thumbnails.
Well not anymore folks. As you would expect with such a change that Lollipop seems to be, the recents have also drastically changed. Now when you click on the recents icon and it opens the list appears as pages. Think chrome and how their tabs typically appear. The pages are arranged vertically on top of each other with only their upper aspect on display. In fairness this had been known from the original preview of L but thought it worth reminding that it does seem to be in the final images. Now the really interesting bit is that the Google search bar is also present on the recent screen. It’s no secret that the Search giant is pre-occupied (always) with Google search and has always intended on making search (be it voice or type) available from all pages. The fact that it even appears on the recent pages certainly highlights that Google is making good on its promise of making it available everywhere.
As you would expect the Google Search bar appears in its normal position running along the top of the screen and remains there while you scroll through the open pages of recent apps. It is debateable how useful it is to have the search function available on your recent apps list but nevertheless the accessibility of the feature is proving to be extensive across Lollipop. What do you think? Do you like how the new recent list looks? Do you like the integration of Google Search? Let us know.