How often do you make use of the Android “recent apps” button (officially called the Overview)? Do you every so often tap it to reveal (to your surprise) how many apps are there, or do you tend to use it to switch back and forth between apps? If you are of the latter sort, you know that list of apps can be very useful. Instead of tapping the home button to dismiss an app (so you can then open the App Drawer to locate the new app you want to use), you can skip a step or two and tap the Overview to launch the app you want.
But what if the app you want isn’t there? Then you’re back to square one. Wouldn’t it be handy if you could lock the apps you use most often to the Overview? Then you could rest assured those apps would always be but a tap away.
With Android Nougat, that feature has finally arrived. You can now lock apps to the overview, so that, even after a reboot, or a clear all (using the Overview clear button – Figure A), those locked apps will remain.
Figure A
Usage
This new feature is built into the 7.0 platform and is incredibly easy to use. Here’s all you need to do.
- Tap the Overview button
- Locate the app you want to lock
- Tap the lock button in the upper right corner of the app in question (Figure B)
Figure B
Once you’ve locked the app, the lock icon will change (Figure C) and the app will remain in the overview.
Figure C
At this point, the apps you’ve locked cannot be removed from the Overview until you unlock them. As you might expect, to unlock an app, all you have to do is tap the lock button. Once the app is unlocked, you can swipe it to the right to dismiss it from the Overview.
If you’re concerned with locked apps interfering with the split screen function, don’t. Locked or not, you can still add an app to the split screen view for handy Android multitasking.
One handy feature
If anything, this addition to the Overview tool should sway you into making more usage of one very handy feature. Having the ability to lock apps to the Overview means those apps will always be a quick tap away. Use this new locking feature in conjunction with the split screen view and Android becomes an even more powerful platform.
