Android's New Panic Detection Feature Will Close A Glitchy App If You Press The Back Button

Who hasn't encountered an app with bugs? My Nexus 5 struggles nowadays with apps after a span of 2 to 3 years and it becomes a pain to close them in their path. Google has a fix in place, If you press the back button multiple times then Android will automatically close a frozen app in order to make the experience far more smooth and bug-free.

Google has remained quiet on the feature which has made its debut in an update for Android 7.1 Nougat and it was discovered by folks at XDA Developers who went through its source code. It has appeared only in a few devices but the rollout to others is expected soon.

If you press the back button four times with less than third of a second delay, then Android will override the app and bring you back to the home screen. It is listening for back button presses and it is a neat feature if you want to close an app which isn't responding.

The feature has to be manually enabled in order to work. It may be that Google is just testing it on a few devices for now but it may roll out to others sooner or later.