The past and present of Android mobile phone interaction

On the home screen of most Android phones, you can always see the back, menu and home buttons. When Android was first designed, it did not consider interaction on the screen. Input and output were basically based on the keyboard. The most direct way was the physical buttons. However, after the iPhone used the touch screen, the idea changed and began to develop towards the touch screen. The buttons on Android phones also adjusted with the change of technology. Today we will talk about the past and present of the interaction method of Android phones.

In 2008, on the first officially released Android phone, HTC G1, we can clearly see that in addition to the physical keyboard, there are six buttons below the phone screen: answer button, home button, menu button, trackball, back button and hang up button. At this time, Android phones are more like feature phones, as long as the buttons can be used, they are all made into physical keys. This has a lot to do with the fact that Android was not optimized for touch screens in the early stages of design.

In 2009, HTC released the G3. The key arrangement at this time was more reasonable, and a search key was added. However, the keys at this time were still influenced by the previous generation G1. There were still a lot of physical buttons on the main screen, but the arrangement and layout had a certain aesthetic and rationality.

In the HTC Nexus One released in January 2010, the physical buttons on the front were changed to touch buttons. Of course, this was not the first time that Google adopted this key style. The HTC G5 released in November 2009 adopted this design. So why did they keep the search button? This is because Google adopted an open source policy on Android. At that time, all Android phones had built-in Google services, which shows that Google hopes to continue to promote its search service on mobile devices. This is why they set up a separate button for the search function.

Later, as Android shipments increased, OEM manufacturers discovered that users mainly performed operations such as pulling down, pushing up, and clicking icons on the screen, and the direction keys inherited from Symbian and Windows Mobile were meaningless, so they were cancelled.

Before Samsung designed and produced Nexus S for Google, it launched its own Galaxy S for the high-end mobile phone market in April of the same year. In terms of button design, Samsung did not adopt Google's four buttons, but turned the home button into a physical button, placed the return button on the right and the menu button on the left, and cancelled the search button, which also laid the foundation for Samsung's mobile phone button style. In the previous user experience, the search button was the least frequently used button. With the maturity of interaction and interface design, opening global search and in-app search can be achieved by gesture operation or buttons designed in the app, so Samsung boldly cancelled the search button this time.

With the release of Galaxy Nexus, the Android system entered the 4.0 era. At the same time, its built-in virtual keys also led the trend of a generation. At that time, many mobile phones adopted the design of virtual keys, and some manufacturers are still using them until now. In the era of virtual keys, people can adapt to personal user habits by changing the position of virtual keys, achieve personalization, and increase the screen-to-body ratio. However, a new problem emerged at this time. When the virtual key solution is adopted, many "chins" will appear. The biggest complaint about HTC is that there were up to 4 "chins" at one time. Now manufacturers take into account that the existence of virtual keys affects the appearance of mobile phones in certain usage scenarios, so they have thoughtfully added the function of hiding virtual keys.

Meizu developed small circles and SmartBar in the interactive interface, creating a new way of interaction. However, on Meizu phones, many applications are not compatible with SmartBar, resulting in double chins or unsightly interfaces. Meizu also removed SmartBar in subsequent Flyme updates and adopted a new interactive method, mBack.

In the development of Android phones, the function keys were all made into physical keys at the beginning, and then they were simplified to four keys and then gradually evolved into three virtual keys. Most mobile phones now use the three virtual keys for interaction. Many Android phone manufacturers have also been working on better interaction methods, hoping to achieve a refreshing experience like Apple with only one button below the phone screen.

These are all changes made by mobile phone manufacturers to cater to user needs. Now more and more manufacturers have invested more R&D efforts in touch key experience and have made more innovations in interaction modes, which gives consumers more choices when buying mobile phones.

In the early days, the function keys were mostly physical, which made people's learning cost low and allowed them to adapt to the new mobile phone interaction mode more quickly. However, with the development of technology, more things can be done on the touch screen, making all physical keys redundant. The three major keys are still in use today, which shows that they are indispensable in terms of function and can still meet people's daily functional needs. Although the innovative interaction method has a higher learning cost, it can provide people with a simpler interaction method after proficiency in use. This is also the direction that manufacturers are working hard to move forward.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.