What you need to know
- Google is testing a new rear animation on Android that feels directly out of iOS.
- The rear gesture shows you the previous page you came from, so you don’t get away from a page by mistake.
- Some people could already see it (spotted on Chrome 138), but it still flows.
Google works on a new scanning animation for Chrome on Android that looks a lot like iOS. It allows you to start again and take a look at the last page, which facilitates avoiding returning by accident.
Mishaal Rahman at Android authority spotted Google Chrome’s new back animation. It appears gradually, so everyone will not see it right away. That said, Rahman caught it during the execution on a clean installation of Chrome 138 (the latest stable version).
The shift of the edge now lifts an overview of the place where you head, sliding the next page halfway so that you can decide if you really want to go.
The new rear animation in Chrome is very similar to what Safari on iOS does. The predictive back system of Android also borrows a little from the iPhone.
Do you want to try it now?
If you are curious to try the new chrome animation early, you don’t have to wait. Simply place the flag URL below in the address bar and press Enter. Then this will bring you directly to the parameter. Open the drop-down list, rock it on “activated” and press “Relange” to activate it.
chrome://flags/#back-forward-transitionsThe functionality behaves a little differently if the previous screen was not only another page of your navigation history. In other words, this adjusts according to the origin of you.
Chrome’s back sweeping does not always show the same thing, because it depends on how you landed on the page. If you have opened it from another application, you will have an overview of this application while you sweep.
If it brings back to a new tab, you will just get a blank gray screen with the Chrome logo. But if the page comes from a link in another tab, do not expect an overview because it will only come back without animation.
Visual glimpses that really help
The new animation of Chrome is based on the predictive back gesture of Android, which has started to evolve in Android 13. But Chrome pushes it further: Holding a rear scan no longer shows a wave of application switch. In fact, you get a live overview of the last web page, on a soft scale and fades.
Although this is a subtle touch, it could help reduce the boring accidental outings of something important.
