Android 16 to introduce personalized keyboard shortcuts

Android has always been good at making things easy with keyboard shortcuts. These are especially helpful if you use a tablet with a physical keyboard, allowing you to do things like go back to the home screen, check recent apps, or snap a screenshot. Now, with the upcoming Android 16, Google might let you create your own keyboard shortcuts.

Making Shortcuts Your Own

A report from Android Authority suggests that in Android 16 Beta 1, there’s new code hinting at a feature where you can adjust the keyboard shortcuts on your device. Currently, there’s no way to change these shortcuts directly through Google’s settings; you’d need to use extra apps for that.

However, these third-party apps have their limitations. They can only change shortcuts that the Android system can read, and they need to run all the time in the background, which can cause them to stop working if your phone is low on memory or if the screen is off. The good news is, Android 16 might make this process smoother and more reliable.

How Much Can You Change?

It’s not clear yet how much freedom you’ll have with customizing shortcuts in Android 16. Can you change any shortcut, or are there rules about which ones you can tweak? Since Android 16 is still some time away, these details might shift before the final release.

When to Expect Android 16

Android 16 is expected to come out earlier than usual. Google plans to roll it out mid-year, giving other companies more time to get their versions ready.

Android as a Desktop Option

This move towards custom shortcuts in Android 16 is intriguing because we mostly use touch on our phones and tablets. Not everyone knows about keyboard shortcuts. But there’s talk that Google wants to blend Chrome OS into Android, making Android suitable for smartphones, tablets, and even computers.

If Android starts to work like a full desktop OS, having customizable shortcuts would make sense, given how differently we use computers compared to our phones. We’ll need to wait for Android 16 to see exactly how this plays out.