Summary
- Android users can enjoy iPhone’s AssistiveTouch feature with an app called Button Master.
- Button Master allows for customizable shortcuts, like going back, taking screenshots, adjusting volume, and more.
- Beyond basic navigation, Button Master offers features like toggling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, flashlight, and remapping buttons.
Even the biggest Android diehards have to admit that iPhones have some nice features. AssistiveTouch is firmly one of them. It’s that little floating button that lets you do almost anything without straining your thumb. You can get that on your Android device with a handy app.
For those unfamiliar, Apple’s AssistiveTouch creates a virtual button on your screen that you can tap to access various shortcuts and functions. It’s incredibly handy for quick actions, especially on larger phones, or if you want to give your physical buttons a break. Thankfully, the Android ecosystem offers some pretty solid alternatives that bring this same convenience to your device.
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One of the most recent apps to offer this functionality is called “Button Master.” After you install and enable the app, you’ll see a small icon that you can move around the edge of your screen. Tap it, and a menu pops up with options for things like going to your home screen, hitting the back button, opening recent apps, taking a screenshot, adjusting volume, and even launching your favorite apps. You can customize the menu to include exactly what you need most, and choose what the icon looks like, too.
Beyond the basic navigation, Button Master also offers features like quickly toggling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or your flashlight. Like AssistiveTouch on the iPhone, you can also choose different actions for how many times you tap the icon. If there’s something you do very often, you could map that to a single tap and open the menu with a double-tap, for example. Long-press can also be mapped to an action.
Button Master has other features beyond the AssistiveTouch shortcut as well. It allows for launching actions by shaking your device, remapping your phone’s physical buttons, putting shortcuts in the notification tray, and remapping the home button. Many of these features are available for free, but there is a Premium subscription to unlock even more.
Apps like Button Master are precisely why Android is so special. AssistiveTouch is a great feature on iPhones that Google has never attempted to replicate. Android gives developers the tools to create apps that can function deeply in the same way as a system app would. That’s simply not possible on the iPhone, and it’s why we love Android so much.
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