ICS virtual buttons

[doomangiger]

Hey guys I haven't found a post about this yet, so does anyone know if the virtual buttons on ics have the option to be turned off? Because it seems to me that the capacitive buttons on the razr are good enough lol. I really don't like the thought of useless virtual buttons taking up so much space on this beautiful screen, but I can see why it can be useful for phones that have sucky capacitive buttons.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[DF Smod]

It won't be part of the UI on devices that have capacitive buttons so no worries

 

[doomangiger]

Thanks! awesome!

 

[kodiak799]

They work pretty much the same, but I use the buttons all the time and that was one of the reasons I traded my Nexus for the Rezound. Plus, the software buttons on the Nexus really needed tweaked for ease and consistency of use.

It is cool how the software buttons disappear to give you a larger screen on video, but I'll never watch much video on my phone unless I have to.

 

[Zandar]

I actually prefer the dedicated buttons to the soft ones (having used both).

Sliced from my RAZR

 

[FoxKat]

I agree 100%. With the dedicated buttons, there's much more room for the GUI of each software package without the virtual buttons, so when all is said and done, the graphics and the text have to fit into a smaller space. In side by side comparisons of the Market, they played a little mind game with us which makes the Market GUI "appear" larger, but it's only smoke and mirrors. The pics I took of my RAZR side by side with the Gnex showed that they enlarged the main text fonts and shrunk other areas so that upon first glance the Gnex Market looked larger, but upon more careful inspection you can see the manipulation and it becomes obvious that the "useable" screen size is actually SMALLER with the Gnex UNLESS they turn off the buttons, as in movies. The big problem is if they turn off the buttons for other applications, you don't have a way to command the phone to go to home, you don't have a menu button, and of course, there's no search either. So, for most applications, the buttons will remain and they will continue to use up valuable screen real estate.

With the RAZR (*and all other Android devices that are getting ICS and already have fixed capacitive buttons - and yes, they're capacitive too*), the on-screen virtual buttons will be programmed out of the OS, much to my happiness... The RAZR wins yet again! :icon_ lala:

 

[doomangiger]

That's another good point. What if the buttons "magically" disappear at the wrong time... Then your only option is to reboot the phone just to get to home screen. Not cool lol