Android N should get rid of the back button.

[Phillip Wall]

If anyone's interested in how/why these decisions are made, I'd suggest reading Don Norman's blog/work. His book The Design of Everyday Things is a classic wrt buttons vs gestures, having visual signifiers and how the brain operates wrt learning and automating tasks.

 

[tonyr6]

When a app has a back button arrow key I press it to go back. When a app does not have that which many do I assume to press back to go to the previous page not exit the app which many do as they rather have a stupid handburger menu to go back.

 

[SpookDroid]

Again, not sure which apps you're referring to, but all apps I've tried use the back button to take you to wherever you were last in the app. If it's the first time I open the app, then yeah, it might exit, which is expected. Only time it might not be as expected (but understandable) is if I'm doing something in an app, then I go to another app, click on a link that takes me to the first app, THEN maybe the back button exits the first app, even though I had it open before, perhaps because the 'caller link' was different than me opening the app...

 

[Tom Insixiangmai]

Seriously? I can't live without it. I switched to iOS and had to switched back to Android because of the back button.

 

[Michael Elkin]

I do think it is sometimes annoying that apps close, but I think this is more of an issue of the specific apps. Many apps especially in 6.0 do not go to the previous page or view (which I think they should and just exit. But it is somewhat easy to load the app back up.
The back button is my most used button despite the slight annoyances.
My second most used button is the settings, which is now recent apps and I hate it. Some apps still add an extra options mutton at the bottom, but I will it was there all the time. In google apps at least the options button is always at the top so it is not possible to reach with one hand.
What I would love to see is the ability to customize the buttons.

 

[ansm]

It is clearly impossible to get rid of back button. Because to do it you need to force rewrite most of android applications.

 

[ilordvader]

HAHAHHAHAHAHA
dream on

 

[tsparks1]

Nah, the back button needs to stay imo.

 

[davidnc]

Im with the "Keep the back button group"