Ever since the iPhone X was announced back in 2017, marking the iPhone’s 10th anniversary in typical fashion, people have been raving about the all-new navigation gestures that Apple employed. Truth be told, there was undeniably a learning curve for most new users, if not all of them. However, it is fair to say the ice broke quite quickly.
The idea behind this new gesture-based navigation system is to maximize the usable screen real estate and allow Apple to trim down the bottom chin as much as possible. Apple decided to do away with its iconic Home button in favor of this new spacebar-like sliding pill.
Predictably, other manufacturers decided to follow suit and try their hands at it, much as they have done previously when Apple brutally decided that the headphone jack has lived long enough. From OnePlus and Xiaomi to Huawei and Google (well, sort of), every manufacturer has clearly spent some time on the drawing board trying to craft their own version of navigation gestures. But what if you are amongst the custom ROM enthusiasts and decided to flash a custom ROM on your phone? What if you own a phone that has no navigation gestures of any sort? Sure, falling back to the classic 3-button navigation bar is not that inconvenient despite looking a bit archaic nowadays. However, thanks to this app, you still have the choice to go the full-screen navigation gestures route.
The app in question is called Fluid Navigation Gestures, which has only one objective to serve: bring full-screen navigation gestures to the masses. You can easily find the app on the Play Store for free. After installing the app from the Play Store, you will be greeted with a brief tutorial guiding you to activate the app after granting the required permissions and showcasing the app’s different features. Once you enable the required permissions, most notably the accessibility service, you are pretty much set. You can simply enable the new navigation system at will by tapping on the toggle shown below. This will activate 5 trigger areas on the sides of your phone: 3 at the bottom and 2 on each side. Hiding the navigation bar is one toggle away, as well as showing it when the keyboard is shown on the screen. However, it must be noted that in order to unhide the navigation bar you must toggle that specific setting off. Force stopping the app will only cause more problems to arise in case you didn’t enjoy your experience with this app.
One of the beautiful features of this specific gesture-based navigation system is the ability to customize every aspect of it. You can set custom actions for each trigger area not only for quick swipes but also when you swipe and hold on each trigger area. In other words, you can have up to 10 custom actions set up to your preference, from the usual navigation actions and toggling split-screen mode to showing the notifications panel or quickly switching to your last app. You can even set it to launch any app of your choice, although that is only available in the pro version, which you can unlock at the cost of $2.49.
The customization doesn’t stop here either. Aside from setting up your custom actions for each trigger area, you can also adjust the “swipe and hold duration” to determine how long the app should wait until a swipe-and-hold action is triggered. Not only that, but you can also adjust the sensitivity, vertical size, and location offset of the triggers on the side, as well as the sensitivity of the bottom trigger. One of the important highlights that have been brought in recent versions is the option to move the side triggers away from the keyboard when it shows up to prevent confusion when typing, especially when you tap on those characters on the edge.
After setting up your custom actions and adjusting the triggers size and sensitivity to your liking, you are pretty much set to navigate through your phone using these new gestures. Swiping from the edge of the screen will reveal a kind of a black-tinted sliding open bubble that subtly stems from the edge with a small icon indicating the triggered action. Pro users will have complete control over the ongoing theme, from changing the background and accent colors to changing the actual slide animation from the default Edge bubble one, as well as the size of the side and bottom triggers. Adjusting the sound and vibration, though, doesn’t require unlocking the pro version.
Last but not least, you can set the navigation gestures to automatically pause when you launch certain apps of your choice. Not only that, but you can also set it to automatically pause in the lock screen, during app installation or in the permissions manager, which are already enabled by default. Also, you can pause the navigation gestures automatically when the phone is in immersive mode and in landscape orientation.
Overall the app adds a ton of functionality and provides a very convenient and alternative experience of the full-screen gestures in a very compelling, well-thought-of package. It can even work flawlessly in tandem with your OEM’s proprietary implementation of navigation gestures, like OnePlus’ gestures on Android Pie on the OnePlus 5T/6/6T. However, there are a few issues I came across.
I have been an avid user of various OnePlus phones, going all the way back to the OnePlus 3, and I currently use a OnePlus 6 as my daily driver. I really like OnePlus’ implementation of full-screen navigation gestures, especially the way it is animated. However, I still find it quite convenient to set a trigger area on the right side for better one-handed usability. After I enabled OnePlus’ gestures, a small warning was displayed in the app that says that the “back” action will not work as a result of enabling the OnePlus navigation gestures. Other than that, the app worked flawlessly on my OnePlus 6 for the most part. I set the app to toggle split-screen mode on a long swipe, and to drag down the notifications shade on a short swipe on the right side trigger.
Another bummer that I have stumbled across is probably more relevant to how OnePlus handles background service apps such as Fluid Navigation Gestures. Occasionally, I would find myself swiping on the right edge with no response, and the phone would swipe through the home screens instead sometimes. That is because the service itself gets killed and the app is automatically disabled. Thankfully, it only requires you to open the app and press the toggle once to enable it again and nothing more. However, it does take away a part of the joyful experience I have with this app. I wouldn’t point my fingers at the app developer just yet, especially when taking OnePlus’ long record in killing background apps into account. However, it is something that I felt was worth noting.
Apart from these little niggles I have come across, I think that this app ticks most of the boxes for a proper alternative, full-screen gesture-based navigation system, if not all of them. In fact, I think this app may rival some of the OEM implementations of navigation gestures when it comes to functionality. One thing for sure, I enjoyed using these navigation gestures over Google’s pseudo-gestures messy navigation bar. I also believe that this app is in a league of its own when it comes to customisability. The free version may be more than enough for most people, and for $2.49 for the pro version, this app is worth every penny for the sheer amount of added customisability and functionality you will get.
