Android users may soon have an easier, faster way to magnify on-screen elements

As we inch closer to the launch of Android 15, more of its potential features keep getting unearthed. Industry insider Mishaal Rahman found evidence of a new camera extension called Eyes Free to help stabilize videos shot by third-party apps. 

Before that, Rahman discovered another feature within the Android 15 Beta 1.2 update relating to a fourth screen magnification shortcut referred to as the “Two-finger double-tap screen” within the menu.

What it does is perfectly summed up by its name: quickly double-tapping the screen with two fingers lets you zoom in on a specific part of the display. That’s it. This may not seem like a big deal initially, but it is. 

As Rahman explains, the current three magnification shortcuts are pretty wonky. The first method requires you to hold down on an on-screen button, which is convenient but causes your finger to obscure the view and only zoom into the center. The second method has you hold on both the volume buttons, which frees up the screen but takes a while to activate. 

The third method is arguably the best one—tapping the phone display three times lets you zoom into a specific area. However, doing so causes the Android device to slow down, so it’s not instantaneous. Interestingly enough, the triple-tap method warns people of the performance drop. 

This warning is missing on the double-tap option, indicating the zoom is near instantaneous. Putting everything together, you can think of double-tap as the Goldilocks option. Users can control where they want the software to focus on without experiencing any slowdown.

Improved accessibility

At least, it should be that fast and a marked improvement over the triple tap. Rahman states in his group’s time testing the feature, they noticed a delay when zooming in. He chalks this up to the unfinished state of the update, although soon after admits that the slowdown could simply be a part of the tool and may be an unavoidable aspect of the software.

It’ll probably be a while until a more stable version of the double-tap method becomes widely available. If you recall, Rahman and his team could only view the update by manually toggling the option themselves. As far as we know, it doesn’t even work at the moment.

Double-tap seems to be one of the new accessibility features coming to Android 15. There are several in the works, such as the ability to hide “unused notification channels” to help people manage alerts and forcing dark mode on apps that normally don’t support it.

While we have you, be sure to check out TechRadar’s round up of the best Android phones for 2024.

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