Pixel 3 offers the best Android experience right now. But there’s one aspect of that Android experience that people can’t uphold, which is the dreadful bad new multitasking system, which is mandatory on this year’s Pixel generation, preceding the option of the old familiar Android button trio as we had with the Pixel 2 on the same Android 9 Pie OS.
Google’s new approach to switching between apps looks a whole lot like the one Apple introduced with the iPhone X. It includes swipes and shares two of the same fundamental gestures: one swipe up from the bottom of the screen brings up the multitasking overview, while lateral swipes across the bottom navigation bar flip between apps.
It got all these new features but didn’t get rid of one; which is the app drawer. The app drawer is a place where you keep all the other apps which you don’t want to see on the home screen, and it’s visibly accessible when you swipe up from the bottom middle of the screen. Now, that same swipe is how you get into multitasking mode. The only difference is that when you long swipe, you open the app drawer otherwise you open the multitasking menu. And it becomes kind of a thumb exercise when you try to long swipe Every time to get to open the app drawer on a phone of the size of Pixel 3XL.
When someone wants to access their apps, what tends to happen most often is they fail at completing the awkward long swipe, wind up at the multitasking menu, and then do another quick swipe to get to the apps. This may sound minor, but it genuinely takes away from the speed with which they are able to access my less commonly used apps.
In summary, Google has reduced the usability and information density of its multitasking without gaining much of anything. It’s just not worthy of being the default and only option for the company’s signature version of Android on the Pixel 3.