The way you suggest is why Android's back is confusing. If I hand you my phone and put you on a particular screen and ask you "if you press back right now where will you end up" you have no idea
Even if it's your own phone if it's been a few minutes, hours since you last used an app you'll have no idea.
Here’s what I hope is an objective fact about the Android back button. IT’S NOT PREDICTABLE!
The way it works is that each app has a “stack” of screens. Pressing the back button pops the current screen off that stack revealing the screen below. If there are none you are taken to the home screen. The problem is let’s say you start the Messaging app. The first screen is “list” of conversations screen. You pick a conversation and now you are on the “conversation” screen. From the conversation screen you press “back” and you get the “list” screen. Press back again you get the “home” screen.
Now let’s take another senario. You are in the browser. You get a notification that you have a new message. You select the notification for the message. You are taken to the “conversation” screen. You press home and do something else, say listen to music. Later you decide you want to send a message to someone. You go the home screen and pick the messaging app. Since the app is still running you see the “conversation” screen. You press back you get the “home” screen. WTF!
In the first case it went “conversation”->”list” in the second case it went “conversation”->”home”
Notice in this case, even if you had an amazing memory and could remember that you happened to launch the messaging app from a notification an hour ago or last night or something you still have no direct way to get to the “list” screen. The only way there is to select the messaging app either from the home screen or the recently used list. You’ll get the “conversation” screen. You press “back” and you’ll exit the messaging app back to the “home” screen. Now you have to navigate the home screen to the screen that has the messaging app icon on it so you can re-launch the messaging app and have it start in on the “list” screen.
Android should never have had a back button in the first place. If there was no back button there'd be no way to make it inconsistent. Switching back to another app would be come the simple habit of holding home for a moment and picking the app you want to go back to and you'd always be able to predict where any button will take you.
I applaud them for trying to fix it but putting in the guidelines, which may or may not be read by the majority of devs, seems unlikely to fix the problem.
The way you suggest is why Android's back is confusing. If I hand you my phone and put you on a particular screen and ask you "if you press back right now where will you end up" you have no idea
Even if it's your own phone if it's been a few minutes, hours since you last used an app you'll have no idea.
Here’s what I hope is an objective fact about the Android back button. IT’S NOT PREDICTABLE!
The way it works is that each app has a “stack” of screens. Pressing the back button pops the current screen off that stack revealing the screen below. If there are none you are taken to the home screen. The problem is let’s say you start the Messaging app. The first screen is “list” of conversations screen. You pick a conversation and now you are on the “conversation” screen. From the conversation screen you press “back” and you get the “list” screen. Press back again you get the “home” screen.
Now let’s take another senario. You are in the browser. You get a notification that you have a new message. You select the notification for the message. You are taken to the “conversation” screen. You press home and do something else, say listen to music. Later you decide you want to send a message to someone. You go the home screen and pick the messaging app. Since the app is still running you see the “conversation” screen. You press back you get the “home” screen. WTF!
In the first case it went “conversation”->”list” in the second case it went “conversation”->”home”
Notice in this case, even if you had an amazing memory and could remember that you happened to launch the messaging app from a notification an hour ago or last night or something you still have no direct way to get to the “list” screen. The only way there is to select the messaging app either from the home screen or the recently used list. You’ll get the “conversation” screen. You press “back” and you’ll exit the messaging app back to the “home” screen. Now you have to navigate the home screen to the screen that has the messaging app icon on it so you can re-launch the messaging app and have it start in on the “list” screen.
Android should never have had a back button in the first place. If there was no back button there'd be no way to make it inconsistent. Switching back to another app would be come the simple habit of holding home for a moment and picking the app you want to go back to and you'd always be able to predict where any button will take you.
I applaud them for trying to fix it but putting in the guidelines, which may or may not be read by the majority of devs, seems unlikely to fix the problem.