Google is also testing a horizontal volume slider in Android that appears at the top-middle of the screen in landscape mode, to be more like the approach on Apple’s iPhone. The redesign (or a tweak to it) has been hidden within the newest Android 16 QPR2 Beta 1, indicating the company is still fine-tuning how system UI responds when you flip your phone sideways.
The modification is not enabled at this time, but its purpose is evident: minimize on-frame blocking during gameplay and video watching while still keeping necessary controls close by. If Google does it, it would be one of the more worthwhile tweaks to the Android experience in years.
What’s changing in this job, and why does it matter?
Today’s Android volume HUD appears vertically on the right of the display, a useful location for portrait mode but a clumsier choice in landscape, where it can cover things like critical UI elements. Gamers know the agony: One swift volume change, and the health bars, minimaps and on-screen controls they’d been eyeing disappear.
Android’s not-too-distant Material 3 updates already brought the slider into the modern era with a stream icon, a flatter bar, a waveform animation as you’re playing, and a soft bounce affect. That top-center horizontal layout would build on these adjustments, but in the interest of ergonomics and preserving content, not just to clean up the look of the site.
Hints found inside Android 16 QPR2
Android watcher Mishaal Rahman has discovered that the SystemUI of Goggle’s upcoming QPR2 Beta 1 brings a brand new layout called “volume_dialog_horizontal. It isn’t live right now as the “isVolumeDialogVertical” flag is already enabled meaning that it locks the UI into the current vertical layout as is.
The dormant design suggests a top-centred, horizontal landscape slider that we are familiar with: sound mode buttons (ring/vibrate/silent), main slider and three-dot menu. There’s also support for extra sliders when you have more than one stream playing, handy for media, call and other features like Auracast broadcast audio brought by the Bluetooth SIG.
How it stacks up to iOS
On iOS, volume HUD changes orientation: a skinny vertical bar resting next to the buttons in portrait and a compact horizontal control at the top in landscape. The idea here is to minimize the level of occlusion while ensuring the thumb motion is very short.
Apple HIG suggests we shouldn’t interfere with our primary content, this placement didn’t do that! That suggests Google may be heading in a similar orientation-aware direction, rather than straight up copying the visuals.
Ergonomics, aspect ratios, and reachability
The large device databases that industry outlets use to track devices suggest that most recent Android flagships ship with tall displays—19.5:9 to 20:9 is a common range. In landscape mode, that geometry has the added benefit of leaving plenty of horizontal room for a top-mounted slider, without obscuring the key UI hotspots at the left and right edges.
Fitts’s Law-wise, a uniformly placed, large target favors speedy, low-cognitive effort twitches, particularly when both of your tossed thumbs are cuddled up against the bezel in landscape. It’s a tiny UX tweak with outsized real-world payoffs, especially when it comes to media and gaming.
Phones, tablets, foldables and the exceptions
Don’t expect a one-size-fits-all mandate. On larger displays like tablets and many foldables, the top edge may sometimes be less accessible than the sides, particularly in places like keyboard or stand modes. Google would also be free to retain the vertical HUD on large displays, or provide logic based on the device class that would determine which layout would be the best.
Manufacturers also have latitude. OEM skins tend to tweak SystemUI, so Samsung, Xiaomi and anyone else, could adjust the placement of the slider or the behaviour of the slider based on their own reachability research and customer feedback.
When could this arrive?
Quarterly Platform Releases sometimes incubate features behind flags for weeks or months, and occasionally never ship. If Google gives the go-ahead, it might appear in an upcoming QPR, a Pixel Feature Drop, or the next platform update — the kind of timing that has traditionally followed the company’s established Android rollout rhythm.
Even as a stealth experiment, the signal is unambiguous: Google is optimizing Android’s essential controls for landscape use. But with increased use of Bluetooth LE Audio and stadium-wide Auracast broadcasts becoming more popular, a smarter, less annoying volume HUD is a much-needed area of improvement throughout the Android ecosystem.
