At this point, we know pretty much everything about the Google Pixel 4a. We know how the photos coming out of its camera look like, we know where it’s gonna stand in terms of performance and we also know the probable pricing. However, there’s an interesting tidbit that flew under our radar. As it turns out, the Pixel 4a will miss out on a feature that has been part of the Pixel lineup since the Pixel 2: Active Edge squeeze feature.

Stephen Hall from 9to5Google revealed in a tweet that the Google Pixel 4a will not feature Active Edge gestures. Our Editor-in-Chief Mishal Rahman was able to confirm this news through Julio Lusson who has a pre-production unit of Pixel 4a in his possession — the same guy who gave us an early look of the camera performance and device performance. The screenshot provided by Julio shows that the option to enable the Active Edge feature has been removed from the Gesture section.

Active Edge is a feature that made its debut on the Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL and has been present on every Pixel phone since then, including the Pixel 3 series, Pixel 3a series, and Pixel 4 series. The feature came from Google's acquisition of HTC -- HTC flagships such as HTC U11 and U12 had a similar feature called Edge Sense. The feature lets you squeeze the sides of the phone to invoke certain actions, which in the case of Pixel phones is to launch the Google Assistant.

The Pixel 4a could be the first Pixel phone in a while without Active Edge. Google may have removed it to save cost and/or they may have removed it because it's no longer needed since you can launch the Google Assistant using a diagonal swipe with gestures, and soon, with a double tap on the rear of the phone.

It’s unclear whether Google will ditch the Active Edge feature on the upcoming Google Pixel 5 as well — we won’t be too surprised if that turns out to be the case, though.

Google Pixel 4a XDA Forums

What are your thoughts on Google’s decision to remove the Active Edge functionality? Did you use it extensively on your Pixel phone? Let us know in the comments below.