Return to Previous App in Google Now Launcher

[niieani]

Hi @RSenApps, amazing work on the app so far.
I was wondering - what is the technical challenge to get Return to Previous App working in Google Now Launcher? It's really the only thing I'm missing from the app right now, and can be quite annoying when using voice commands while driving (I need to reach back to the phone to switch the app).

[RSenApps]

The reason it doesn't work for GNL is that the way I achieve this is by simulating the back button press to exit to the previous app. Unfortunately this is not possible when Google Now is also the homescreen. I experimented with using usage task history to guess what the previous app was, but it was far too inaccurate and ended up just confusing users who were unsure why a random app was opening. Of course something like return to a specified previous app is 100% possible and could be implemented so I'll leave this issue open, but please edit the issue to reflect this.

[niieani]

What if there were a minimal footprint service that tracks the current
foreground application, while ignoring only GNL (possibly a customizable
ignore-list). Then it would be as simple as foregrounding last app
registered by the service. What do you think?

On Wed, Jun 3, 2015, 05:21 Ryan Senanayake notifications@github.com wrote:

The reason it doesn't work for GNL is that the way I achieve this is by
simulating the back button press to exit to the previous app. Unfortunately
this is not possible when Google Now is also the homescreen. I experimented
with using usage task history to guess what the previous app was, but it
was far too inaccurate and ended up just confusing users who were unsure
why a random app was opening. Of course something like return to a
specified previous app is 100% possible and could be implemented so I'll
leave this issue open, but please edit the issue to reflect this.

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Bazyli