Threads now supports predictive back gestures on Android

Damien Wilde | May 27 2024 - 1:54 am PT

The latest update for Threads for Android has added support for Android’s predictive back gesture, which helps you understand where in the interface you’ll go back.

When Android 15 arrives later this year, we know from the ongoing beta phase that Android’s predictive back gesture will be enabled by default. In Android 14 today, the option is not that widely prevalent. Despite being added back with Android 13, still requires a Developer option toggle to be enabled for the interface animation to be visible within supported applications. The aim of this function is to enhance gesture-based navigation by giving a preview of the screen you will return to.

As noted, not that many applications currently support the upcoming function. App developers need to add support using the OnBackPressedDispatcher and OnBackPressedCallback classes. Google has appropriate support documents on adding this functionality to Android apps in Android 13 and higher.

Meta’s Threads is one of the latest apps to add support for the predictive back gesture. As one of the world’s growing social platforms, this is a fairly big change given that the app is now in the “Top 20” free applications on the Play Store.

Threads v332.0.0.34.109 rolled out over the past few days via the Google Play Store and integrates the interface animation. Currently it only works on devices running the Android 15 Beta or have the Developer option toggle enabled in Android 13 and higher.

When you’re navigating through posts and content on the platform, this makes it much easier to pick up where you left off and makes an already smooth app feel super slick. You can see it in action below:

Despite being linked with Instagram, the photo-sharing site still lacks the predictive back gesture. However, at least the option works smoothly in the latest stable release on Android devices.