As we get closer to the launch of Android 15, more potential features continue to be discovered. Industry expert Mishaal Rahman found evidence of a new camera extension called Eyes Free to help stabilize videos recorded by third-party apps.
Before that, Rahman discovered another feature within the Android 15 Beta 1.2 update related to a fourth screen magnification shortcut known as “Two Finger Double Tap Screen” within the menu.
What it does is summed up perfectly in its name: quickly double-tapping the screen with two fingers allows you to zoom in on a specific part of the screen. That's all. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but it is.
As Rahman explains, the three current scaling shortcuts are quite complicated. The first method requires you to hold down a button on the screen, which is convenient but causes your finger to obscure the view and only zoom to the center. The second method is to press and hold both volume buttons, which frees the screen but takes a while to activate.
The third method is possibly the best: tapping the phone screen three times allows you to zoom in on a specific area. However, doing so causes the Android device to slow down, so it is not instantaneous. Interestingly, the triple tap method warns people about the drop in performance.
This warning is missing from the double tap option, indicating that zooming is almost instantaneous. All in all, you can think of double tap as the Goldilocks option. Users can control where they want the software to focus without experiencing any slowdown.
Improved accessibility
It should be at least that fast and a noticeable improvement over triple tap. Rahman says that when his group tested the feature, they noticed a delay when zooming. He attributes this to the unfinished state of the update, although shortly thereafter he admits that the slowdown could simply be part of the tool and may be an unavoidable problem. software aspect.
It will probably be a while until a more stable version of the double tap method is widely available. If you remember, Rahman and his team could only see the update by manually toggling the option. As far as we know, it doesn't even work right now.
Double tap appears to be one of the new accessibility features coming to Android 15. There are several in the works, such as the ability to hide “unused notification channels” to help people manage alerts and force dark mode in apps that usually don't work. I don't support it.
While we have it, be sure to check out TechRadar's roundup of the best Android phones for 2024.
