If you’ve seen the Jolla Sailfish phone at work, you’ve probably noticed its UI interesting navigation. Rather than having set buttons to help you navigate around your phone, as we’ve all probably gotten used to on our Android devices, Sailfish instead has gestures. So, depending how and in which direction you swipe certain parts of the screen, you can go back, home, close the app and more. If you own an Android device and are looking for a navigation method that doesn’t take up screen space, or looking for a unique way of navigating your device, you may want to check out Navigation Layer.
An app developed XDA Forum Member wariat, Navigation Layer actually does more than serve as an alternative way of navigating your phone or tablet. The app allows you to perform all sorts of actions from simply swiping the left, right and bottom sides of your screen in different ways to:
- Launch apps
- Go to home screen
- Open previous app
- Open task manager
- Go back
- Put device in standby mode
- Open menu
- Kill current app and go to home screen
- Clear RAM
The last five actions require root access granted to Navigation Layer. But other than that, there really aren’t any other requirements. So, taking the aforementioned Sailfish as a template, you can almost emulate all of its navigation structure with just Navigation Layer.
Although only in its beta phase, Navigation Layer is already a well-polished app that can stand on its own as an alternative to the traditional multitasking and navigation experience on Android devices. If you are interested in trying it out yourself, check out the application thread for more information.