{"id":317567,"date":"2025-08-04T16:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T16:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/317567\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T16:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T16:28:12","slug":"google-is-making-androids-touchpad-controls-more-like-a-desktop-os","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/317567\/","title":{"rendered":"Google is making Android\u2019s touchpad controls more like a desktop OS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"OnePlus Pad 3 with keyboard on desk\"  alt=\"OnePlus Pad 3 with keyboard on desk\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OnePlus-Pad-3-with-keyboard-on-desk.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Paul Jones \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To improve Android\u2019s capabilities on laptops and tablets, Google is adding more advanced touchpad settings.<\/li>\n<li>An upcoming update introduces a customizable three-finger tap gesture for actions like launching Gemini, going home, or middle-clicking.<\/li>\n<li>Later versions will expand on this by letting you map the gesture to open any app and will also add a toggle for touchpad acceleration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last month, Google revealed it plans to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-combine-chrome-os-android-3577035\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">combine Chrome OS and Android<\/a> into a single platform. A key part of this transition is making Android more capable on PCs, which means improving support for peripherals like touchpads. Over the past year, Google has already introduced several enhancements like a new tutorial page and a tap and drag gesture, and it plans to add more in upcoming releases, including a customizable three-finger tap gesture and a touchpad acceleration toggle.<\/p>\n<p>In the stable release of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-features-3484159\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Android 16<\/a>, there are currently seven options under <strong>Settings &gt; System &gt; Touchpad<\/strong>. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Touchpad gestures<\/li>\n<li>Tap to click<\/li>\n<li>Reverse scrolling<\/li>\n<li>Bottom-right click<\/li>\n<li>Tap and drag to move items (previously called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-15-tap-dragging-3484473\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tap dragging<\/a>\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Pointer speed<\/li>\n<li>Cursor &amp; touchpad accessibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-qpr1-beta-3-changes-3578641\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">latest Android 16 QPR1 beta<\/a> adds an eighth option: \u201c<strong>Use three-finger tap<\/strong>.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-three-tap-touchpad-gesture-3513024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">As I previously reported<\/a>, this setting lets you customize the gesture of tapping the touchpad with three fingers. While it does nothing by default, you can assign it to perform one of several actions, such as a middle click, launching Google, going home, going back, or viewing recent apps.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Touchpad settings in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Touchpad settings in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Touchpad-settings-in-Android-16-QPR1.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Three finger tap touchpad gesture settings in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Three finger tap touchpad gesture settings in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Three-finger-tap-touchpad-gesture-settings-in-Android-16-QPR1.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Each of these actions is pretty straightforward. The only action that needs a little explaining is \u201claunch Google,\u201d which actually just launches the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/what-is-google-gemini-3331678\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gemini<\/a> assistant. If you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/perplexity-assistant-vs-gemini-3523242\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">change the Android assistant app<\/a> to something else like Perplexity, the action will be renamed accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>In the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-canary-3576430\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Android Canary<\/a> build, there are even more touchpad options. First, the settings for the three-finger tap gesture gain an \u201c<strong>Open another app<\/strong>\u201d option. Selecting this lets you choose any app on your device to launch with the gesture, adding a new layer of customization on top of the existing actions like \u201cgo home\u201d or \u201cview recent apps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the main touchpad settings page in the Android Canary release has a new \u201c<strong>touchpad acceleration<\/strong>\u201d option. When touchpad acceleration is enabled, \u201cfaster movements on your touchpad will move the cursor farther.\u201d This reduces the distance you have to move your fingers on the touchpad, as you simply need to swipe faster to trigger longer cursor movements.<\/p>\n<p>Given that the \u201copen another app\u201d and \u201ctouchpad acceleration\u201d options aren\u2019t live in Android 16 QPR1 Beta 3, they probably won\u2019t be available in the upcoming stable release of Android 16 QPR1. Since they\u2019re live in the latest Android Canary release, though, they might appear in the next quarterly release.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Jones \/ Android Authority TL;DR To improve Android\u2019s capabilities on laptops and tablets, Google is adding more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3159],"tags":[2239,101364,2240,547,4558,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-317567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android-16","9":"tag-android-canary","10":"tag-authority-insights","11":"tag-mobile","12":"tag-tablets","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114971443441561543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}