Unlike Android, the iPhone has never had a physical return button. You need a way to return to the previous page in various applications, and rather than a button, Apple has found a decent solution in the rear gesture. This forces you to slide from the left edge of the iPhone screen to the right, and although it does not work in all applications, most have adopted it. As good as this gesture is, it can be difficult to reach right -handers (especially on large iPhones) because it forces you to extend your thumb to the left. IOS 26 facilitates this a lot.
Once you have started using iOS 26, you will notice that the rear gesture has changed. You can slide almost anywhere on the screen to go back. It seems much more intuitive than sliding from the left edge. I tried this in a bunch of own Apple applications, including mail, podcasts and settings, and it works quite well in all cases. A notable holdout is safari, which keeps the old back gesture. This is understandable: Safari allows you to go back if you slide right from the left edge, and this also allows you to access a page to slide to the left of the right edge of the screen.
Back gestures on iOS 26 against Android
In some respects, the back gesture of iOS 26 is better than Android back gesture. While Android OS allows you to slide from one of the edges of your phone screen to go back – the navigation based on gestures is activated on your phone – the iOS 26 back gesture is easier to remember: sweep right to go back, whatever the part of the screen you are. This gesture has already become a part of my daily routine on my iPhone 12 Pro Max, where reaching the opposite edge of the screen is a task and a half.
That said, I am frustrated by the current implementation of this gesture because it does not always work. When I open a cat in messages, I have to slide right from the left edge. In other applications, you can sometimes meet a conflicting gesture that can prevent you from going back. For example, in the mail, you must slide on an empty part of the screen to go back. If you sweep one of your emails, you trigger a gesture of pumice on the right by default of the mail, and it shows you the possibility of marking a reading by mail or repeating the email.
What do you think so far?
It could be a question of adapting to the different odds of iOS, but it is also necessary to keep in mind that iOS 26 is still in its first beta developer, so some raw edges are expected. I am very happy to see how it is polished throughout the beta cycle, and above all, how the third -party applications use the gesture to their advantage.
