The Android 12/13 UI really grinds my gears. Excessive amounts of whitespace, and the notification shade has become “kiddified” - Turning off wifi/mobile data now takes 2 taps, the icons are all ridiculously big and takes up so much screen space, etc.
I personally don’t like phones that are excessively big, because I use it a lot on my commutes. Screen real estate is valuable to me, and while whitespace has its uses, I think Android 12/13 went too far - it might work better on a tablet, but it sucks on a phone. I was really tempted by the Pixel, but ended up getting a Samsung partially because of this (One UI doesn’t have the same bloated-whitespace look).
Am I the only one? Surely Google did user testing… didn’t they?
What version of Android are you on? Android 12 or below? It was removed entirely in Android 13. It can be “patched back in” on a custom ROM, but doing so breaks the recents screen due to incompatible changes made to the system launcher (which handles the recents screen for… some reason).
Or maybe you have a Samsung or other phone that has their own 2 button implementation. But as far as I’m aware, it’s gone from AOSP as of Android 13 :(
Pixel 7.
I’m running the public beta, which is in 14 right now, but it was still a feature in the general public release of 13. Literally the first thing I did when I got my new phone was switch back to three button navigation.
In my case I can’t use 2 button navigation, which I’m pretty sure is because I have accessibility features turned on, but I would have to double check.
Anyway for me the way to switch is:
Settings→System→Navigation→3-Button Navigation