Google is significantly enhancing Android’s touchpad capabilities, making the operating system more akin to a desktop environment as it prepares to merge Chrome OS and Android into a unified platform. These improvements are crucial for Android’s performance on PCs, including laptops and tablets, and focus on providing users with more advanced customization options for peripheral interactions.
Currently, the stable release of Android 16 offers seven touchpad settings located under Settings > System > Touchpad. These include “Touchpad gestures,” “Tap to click,” “Reverse scrolling,” “Bottom-right click,” “Tap and drag to move items” (formerly “tap dragging”), “Pointer speed,” and “Cursor & touchpad accessibility.”
A notable addition in the latest Android 16 QPR1 beta is an eighth option: “Use three-finger tap.” This setting allows users to customize the action performed when tapping the touchpad with three fingers. While it defaults to no action, users can assign it to perform various functions. These include a middle click, launching Google (which specifically triggers the Gemini assistant, or a different assistant if configured), going home, going back, or viewing recent applications.
Further refinements are evident in the latest Android Canary build, which introduces even more extensive touchpad options. The settings for the three-finger tap gesture now include an “Open another app” option. This new feature allows users to select any installed application on their device to launch with the three-finger tap, significantly expanding customization beyond the predefined actions like “go home” or “view recent apps.”
Additionally, the Android Canary release incorporates a “touchpad acceleration” option on the main touchpad settings page. When enabled, this feature adjusts cursor movement based on the speed of finger gestures, meaning “faster movements on your touchpad will move the cursor farther.” This design aims to reduce the physical distance fingers need to travel on the touchpad for longer cursor movements.
It is important to note that the “Open another app” and “touchpad acceleration” options are not present in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 3. This suggests that these features are unlikely to be included in the upcoming stable release of Android 16 QPR1. However, their presence in the latest Android Canary release indicates a strong possibility that they will be made available in a subsequent quarterly release, further aligning Android’s touchpad functionality with that of a desktop operating system.
