At today’s announcement of Android Q Beta 5, Google revealed that it was going to move custom launchers off of the new gesture navigation system as of Beta 6, defaulting to the old three-button method if you use one. While that might sound like a reason to worry, this change is merely an “an unfortunate, yet short-term inconvenience” in Action Launcher developer Chris Lacy’s words. Google has confirmed it will bring gesture support for third-party launchers “in a post-launch update” for Android Q.
Part of this issue likely stems from the fact that Google, for whatever reason, has elected to make many of its navigation-related changes part of the launcher. The new recents/multitasking menu, for example, implemented with Android 9 Pie’s two-button gesture system requires launcher support to work…
