Google added new back animations toAndroid 14that allow you to see the next step ahead of finishing the gesture. To use this, you need toactivate predictive back gesturesin your system setting’s developer options. However, the latest update of Google Calendar makes clear that apps don’t even need developer options to be enabled to display Predictive Back Gestures.
In Google Calendar’s latest version (2025-06-20-576506181), predictive back gestures are activated by default for some transitions. If you use the back gesture to navigate back from an appointment’s detailed view and drag your finger further across the screen, you can see your agenda beneath it in the background. As soon as you let go, the detailed view is fully minimized. It falls back to the position where its preview is visible in the timeline.
This behavior can also be reproduced when using the agenda widget. The only difference is that the detailed view drops out of the bottom of your screen when you let go rather than minimizing to its original position. However, predictive back gestures don’t work for other transitions to your home screen or to previously used apps.
We can confirm this behavior on both Android 14 and on theAndroid 14 QPR1 Beta. It doesn’t work onAndroid 13.
Google Calendar achieves this by using a custom transition. When comparing Google Calendar’s new animations with those we can see in other apps that only show predictive back gestures with the developer options enabled, Calendar behaves significantly differently. It only shows a small preview of the next page rather than giving a full preview that slides out from the left of the screen.
Left: Predictive back system gestures. Right: Predictive back preview at Android Dev summit 2022.
AsAndroid expert Mishaal Rahmanexplained a while ago, the transitions used by Calendar and other apps like it are not controlled by the System UI, which is the only kind of predictive gestures gated behind developer options. Instead, Google Calendar likely usesAndroidX Activity 1.8.0, a library that includes options to build custom animations. In theaccompanying developer documentation, Google explains that it expects “most apps to use the backward compatible AndroidX APIs, but there are also similar platform APIs within the OnBackAnimationCallback interface available to test in Android 14 Developer Preview 1 and higher.”
The company first showed off Android 14’s predictive back navigation at its Android Dev Summit 2022 in October 2022. In its example, Google showcased a generic calendar app interface with suspiciously similar back navigation. It’s likely that Google started prototyping this functionality with its Calendar app early on, and the stable release is just the latest step in a years-long development process. After all, Google began prototyping predictive back navigation with Android 13.
Jul 27, 2025, 09:36 AM ET: Article updated with more detailed explanation on the difference between System UI-controlled animations and in-app transitions.
Thanks: Kieron
