Sometime last month, after the official release of Android 11 Developer Preview 1, developers identified a new feature called “Columbus”. This feature allows users to double-click the rear of their smartphones to activate some apps. This double-click works for voice assistant, camera application, app and more.
Now, we have the Android 11 Developer Preview 2 and there are indications that this feature is still available. In fact, there are reasons to believe that Google is testing this feature in the Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. Furthermore, Google added two new operations to the “Columbus” gesture. These features are taking a screenshot and entering the multitasking interface.
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The new gesture feature does not require any special hardware to work. It uses data from the device’s accelerometer and gyroscope to determine if the user double-clicked on the back of the device. In order to reduce power consumption and misuse, these double-tap gestures have a “door” to prevent them from starting in some cases (for example, when the screen is off).
For now, the “Columbus” gestures could trigger the following actions:
- Off timer
- Launch camera
- Launch Google Assistant
- Play/pause media
- Collapse status bar
- Mute incoming phone calls
- Snooze alarms
- Unpin notifications
- Perform a “user-selected action”
- Screenshot
- Enter the multitasking interface
