Google official: Say goodbye to the Android mobile phone hardware menu button

The hardware menu button of the Android phone is about to disappear. This is an official statement. Google's Android team announced in its blog that Android phones no longer need a special "menu" button. Of course, this does not mean that OEMs will not provide this button on their mobile phones, but from the Google perspective, the menu button is already in the past. In a few months, all new Android phones authorized by Google will no longer have this button.

Before Android 3.0, all Android phones had a special menu button to display some setting options. In 3.0, the system removed the system's dependency on the hardware menu button by introducing ActionBar, allows you to directly view various settings on the screen. (For example, the upper right corner of the Market application)

Google said in its blog:

"To bring users the most intuitive and seamless experience using applications, developers should stop using the hardware menu button during design and use ActionBar instead ."

With the launch of Android 4.0 and Galaxy Nexus, we can clearly see that Google is doing its best to simplify the Android user experience. Google also referred to the newly introduced UI element Action Bar as the "most important structural element" in Android applications ". Its drop-down menu-instead of the hardware menu button-will provide a unified appearance and experience in all Android applications.

In the blog statement, Google encourages developers to use the new Action Bar instead of the traditional menu button. In addition, Google provides a detailed tutorial, to provide users with such an experience, you only need to add several lines of code. There is no doubt that Google hopes that all Android apps will adopt the new UI as soon as possible.

For more information, see the Android developer blog article: Say Goodbye to the Menu Button.