Android 4.2 to have 2nd pull-down Menu for Quick Settings?

The boys over at Android Police have been busy tearing apart a system dump from the (still not official) upcoming LG Nexus phone, running Android 4.2! The first we heard from them was when they revealed that the upcoming Gmail would have pinch-to-zoom and swipe-to-delete functionality, and now they have another gem to throw our way.

This time they have found a placeholder image for a second pull-down panel, which gives a (not) subtle indication as to what might be on this new panel (see above).

In case that isn’t clear enough, I’ll spell it out: it looks like Android 4.2 will have a second pull-down panel for quick settings! This is similar to what we’ve had running around on custom ROMs for a long time, and several OEMs (HTC and Samsung come to mind, as do ASUS on their tablets) are also known to include quick settings as part of the notification panel, but Google’s take is slightly different.

In most implementations, you access the quick settings in one of two ways. Either the settings are there sitting above your notifications, shuffling your notifications down a little bit, or the settings are in a separate tab of the notification panel, which you reach by pressing on the appropriate spot. In the build that Android Police have got, however, the settings are reached by swiping down from the top once you’ve already opened the notification panel. This essentially opens a second pull-down panel ON TOP of the notification panel. One swipe for notifications, two swipes for settings.

Now at first this might seem crazy, but I’m inclined to agree with the opinion put forward by Android Police’s Ron Amadeo. I prefer my quick settings in a separate place to my notifications, I don’t feel a phones screen is big enough to try and fit both in the same place. The question then becomes how do you access this second area, and to my mind a double swipe is a much easier and faster manoeuvre than the swipe-and-tap currently used in custom ROMs and OEM builds. And lets keep in mind it can’t be a horizontal swipe, as is popular in Google apps like Google+ and Play Music, because a horizontal swipe clears notifications.

Finally, the other change uncovered this time is that the status bar will not be hidden when the notification panel is swiped down. Although a minor change, this is a welcome addition for me, it never made any sense to me to hide it in the first place.

Now lets keep in mind that the build that Android Police has is an in-progress build. As such things are going to change before Android 4.2 is released, so there’s no guarantee that the double-swipe down will be the final method, or even that the quick settings menu won’t be dumped back to a later release. For now all we can do is hope. Well that and head over to Android Police to watch their video of it!

Source: Android Police