The first Android 12 developer preview just rolled out, and we're digging through it to find all the new changes included in the update. So far, we've taken a look at several changes for developers that aim to make Android more intuitive, better performing, and more secure. We've also discovered quite a few user-facing changes, like UI optimizations that will significantly improve one-handed use. But, as it turns out, Google isn't just introducing new features with Android 12. It also seems to be removing underutilized features. The half-swipe notification gesture being a case in point.

Currently, you can perform two kinds of swipe gestures on notifications. You can either do a full swipe in either direction to remove the notification from the notifications shade or swipe halfway to bring up the snooze and notification settings options. However, Google seems to be getting rid of the half-swipe notification gesture in Android 12.

As you can see in the attached video, the half-swipe gesture doesn't show the snooze and settings cog in the first Android 12 developer preview. To snooze notifications, you'll now first have to enable snoozing notification from within the Apps & notifications settings, and then you'll see a new snooze button in the bottom right corner of the notification (see screenshot below).

In my opinion, this new snooze button is much more intuitive than the half-swipe gesture and it may even prompt more people to utilize the feature. However, we can't be sure if this new implementation will make its way to the final release at the moment. This is due to the fact the first Android developer preview often lacks several features that are introduced (or reintroduced) in the following releases. We'll update this post as soon as we can confirm if the gesture is gone for good or not.