Today’s very long and wide smartphones are often difficult to use with one hand. But the software can help with this. However, Google’s solution leaves a lot of room for criticism and room for improvement. Google finally introduced a one-handed operation for its own Pixel phones.
However, you quickly notice in everyday life that there is still an urgent need for follow-up work. The one-handed operation currently offered can not compensate for the disadvantage of today’s very large smartphones. Google can actually do it better, as the Gboard proves.
With its own keyboard app, one-hand operation is much more flexible. It makes the keyboard smaller but also flexible. The user has significantly more power to decide how small the keyboard can be and where it should be placed. The new one-hand operation for the entire Android system, on the other hand, is extremely inflexible.
Operation with one hand: Gboard shows how it can be done
If you activate it with a swipe gesture over the navigation bar, the entire display is simply pushed to the middle of the screen. This gives me better access to the screen content that is placed at the top.
But I continue to fall short of what was placed at the very edge. The Explore tab in Google Maps, the For Me section in Google News, and so on. The system-wide one-hand operation even pushes controls completely out of the picture, while the Gboard offers full flexibility:
While I found it difficult to operate the device with one hand with the Pixel 6, it is all the more complicated with the Pixel 6 Pro. It is the first such large smartphone from Google. So the new one-hand operation is no coincidence. But it definitely needs to be optimized and expanded.
Other Android manufacturers have been fooled into doing this often enough. They shrink the overall image, making it more accessible. Since the company has recently been working very closely with Samsung, Google could take a look here.
