Android 12 is finally here, and we’re still digging through to find out everything that is new with this latest version of Android. And it appears that the popular swipe-down gesture that is found in the Pixel Launcher, will be available from any app.
As you can see in the demo that XDA’s Mishaal Rahman posted on Twitter, you can swipe down in any app to bring up the notification shade. And yeah, we know, normally swiping down will just swipe in the app. So for this gesture, you just swipe down right above the gesture bar at the bottom. that will allow you to bring down the notification shade.
Likely a replacement for the fingerprint sensor’s gesture
This is likely going to be the replacement for the gesture on the fingerprint sensor, where you could swipe down to open the notification shade. Which was really useful because your finger mostly sits on the sensor. So swiping down was pretty easy. With this new gesture, it’s going to be a bit tougher, since you need to swipe down at the very bottom of the screen.
It’s unclear if Google is removing the fingerprint sensor gesture from Android 12.
It’s also important to note that this feature is in development – it’s part of the developer settings. So that means that it may not actually launch with Android 12, as a user feature. That also means that it could undergo some major changes before September when the final version of Android 12 launches, or it could be nixed altogether.
Be careful when enabling things in the developer settings, as you could really cause some issues, and make your phone unusable. Especially in this first developer preview. As things are still pretty broken here in the first preview, but that will change in the coming previews and betas.