Android 15 has a “tiny” taskbar for phones in the pipeline
Google is working on a “tiny” taskbar for phones, Android expert Mishaal Rahman discovered. The new feature isn’t available on the latest public beta build of Android 15 (Beta 4), but Rahman could enable and use it on his phone. The functionality is similar to the revamped taskbar for large-screen devices like foldables and tablets.
The updated version doesn’t persistently sit at the bottom of your screen but briefly shows up as a floating pill when you swipe up on the navigation handle. With this approach, the taskbar doesn’t unnecessarily eat up the screen space when you don’t need it. Of course, it’s a bit extra work while multitasking, but you can’t have everything.
Well, Google lets users select either taskbar layout. If you want it to always appear on your foldable or tablet’s screen, you have that option. You cannot do that on slab phones, though. At least not with the current iteration of the feature. It requires you to swipe up on the navigation bar. You can see the feature in action in the video below.
If you noticed, there are two navigation bars at the bottom of the screen. That’s because the “tiny” taskbar isn’t completely developed in Android 15 Beta 4. As such, it may not arrive with the forthcoming stable build. In turn, One UI 7.0 could lack it too. However, if Google speeds up the development, we can expect the taskbar on One UI 7.1 early next year. Or maybe it will never arrive, only time will tell.
