Now, you can use simple gestures to switch Google accounts
What's the story
In a bid to make its services more convenient to use, Google is adding a handy new capability into its Android/iOS apps - the ability to switch accounts with gestures.
The feature, as Android Police reported, will let you cycle through accounts using nothing but hand-based gestures.
It's already available for a number of users and can be tried right away.
Here's how.
Two accounts
People often use two Google accounts
People often use two or more Google accounts to keep their personal and professional lives separate.
The work account is mostly used for services like Gmail (where you get office emails) and Google Docs, while the other one is used for more generic stuff, like your personal Gmail, Google Photos, Keep notes, YouTube, and Google Play Store.
Need
Dual accounts trigger the need for seamless switching
Now, the thing is, when you have two accounts for a single service, say like Gmail, you may have to switch between them seamlessly to stay updated all the time.
This can be done by tapping on the profile picture in the upper right corner of the service and selecting the other account.
But, as many have reported, the method is not that fast.
Gestures
This is where the gesture support comes in
To tackle this specific issue, Google has introduced gesture-based account switching in its Android and iOS services.
The feature, currently available for select users, works by simply swiping up or down over the same account avatar you had tap before.
It detects the swipe seamlessly, moving you immediately from one account to another.
Roll out
Gestures rolling out for users in India
We're able to test the account-switching gesture in the latest version (v10.23.0) of Google Maps for Android.
Hope is that the capability would eventually roll out into other Google products, including Drive and Gmail, where it would be more useful for the users.
Notably, the iOS version of these Google services will also get the gestures.