Android’s Physical Navigation Buttons Make a Comeback in Google Books, but with a Twist

A common misconception about Googlebooks is that the Quick Insert and Google logo keys are recent additions. In reality, they first appeared a couple of years ago on certain Chromebooks. However, there’s something fresh for Googlebooks that harkens back to Android phones from around 2014.

On every Googlebook keyboard, the F1, F2, and F3 keys feature the classic triangle, circle, and square navigation icons that originated with Android 5.0 Lollipop. These symbols represented the back, home, and app switcher functions long before gesture navigation took over, and they still exist on phones running Android 17 as an alternative. On Googlebook OS, these keys perform as expected: the left-pointing triangle takes you back, the circle minimizes all open apps to return to the home screen, and the square displays your open apps, similar to Mission Control on macOS or Task View on Windows.

It’s handy to have these buttons, especially since they’re consistent across all Googlebooks. The back button can be particularly useful when dealing with Android apps that aren’t fully optimized for a desktop setup or mouse controls. I do wish that pressing the home button a second time would restore all your apps to their previous state, but that functionality, known as desktop peeking, requires a different keyboard shortcut.

For those who have been into Android for a while, it’s nostalgic to see these buttons still in use. They also serve as a reminder that sometimes you need a reliable fallback when Android behaves in its typical fashion.