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The reason given is:
Specifically, Google wanted to eliminate the button that lets you view all your open apps, making it easier to see your apps with a swipe.
But the underlying reason for wanting to do it comes from this quote from Dave Burke, Google's VP of engineering for Android
"Android have those three buttons at the bottom: Home, back and something else," Burke said. "And it's, it's a little too much, a little too complicated. I think of it as like walking into a room with three doors and it's like, 'which door do I go in?'"
My response to Burke would be: Well, Dave, when you walk into the room, and there's three doors, and one of them is labeled "bedroom", one of them is labeled "kitchen", and one of them is labeled "bathroom"; it's pretty easy to decide whether you're tired, hungry, or need to take a leak - so maybe you should look at having standards for labeling things.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Tuesday May 15 2018, @08:48AM
As it happens, this week I've retired my Nokia N9 (vintage 2011) and switched to an Android-based phone (Keyone).
The N9's Meego OS was based around swiping gestures, and had no front-facing buttons at all (Three on the side: volume up/down and power). For those of you unfamiliar with it, there were three homescreens which you could swipe left/right through: launcher, running apps, and feeds/notifications. When an app is running, swiping up or to the side (from offscreen) takes you back to the homescreen, whereas swiping down closes the app. Pressing the status bar at the top of the screen opens the status window.
I'm now in the process of training myself not to swipe down to close programs on the Keyone. It's a slow process.
(I wasn't previously aware that Apple had ditched their front button in their latest Iphone: it's not a product line I have any interest in. Back in 2011 I had the impression that Nokia were attempting to one-up Apple by getting rid of the last front button on their brand new burning platform.)