[drivebyacct2]

It goes backward. It goes wherever you just were, unless it takes you up a level, and if you just press it again, it takes you back to the app you were in. It's really not hard.

Contact app -> app an email address -> Gmail Compose window -BACK-> Contact app on the contact you were just on.

It takes you backward, it is what makes intents and app interaction work. I can understand why its confusing to an Apple user because there is no equivalent functionality in iOS.

Here, pretend there is no back button, yay! Android works like iOS and I'd go freaking insane. It sure as hell beats what happened to me in iOS tonight, who on Earth finds that usable? Every time one app invokes another I'm expected to go back to the homescreen and drill back down into the original app? Just shoot me.

[cube13]

> It goes backward. It goes wherever you just were, unless it takes you up a level, and if you just press it again, it takes you back to the app you were in. It's really not hard.

And there's no way to tell if you're at the first "point" of the current application(in which case it will switch you to the previous one), or if it will go back to another place within the app.

And the Android OS doesn't determine what the back button does. Individual applications do. So you're dealing with an OS control button that's extremely context sensitive and application specific. You don't know what the button's going to do until you use it in any app.

[drivebyacct2]

That's not quite the whole story. Some apps can inject extra state - so when I get an email, pull down and click, read the email and hit "back" it takes me to the inbox. Back again takes me right back where I was.

I mean, come on, someone give me an example of going app->app and the back button not getting you back to where you came from.

[dfxm12]

I don't think this is exactly what you are referring to, but there are apps, like feedly, where the back button brings you back to the home screen, and not back one screen. I don't know if this is because these apps are "ports" from iOS, or the devs are ignoring Android specific features to make it easier for themselves, or something else.

It's not Android's fault but it does frustrate me that different apps treat the hard button differently. FWIW I would rather have it this way than the way Apple handles it.

[prof_hobart]

>Here, pretend there is no back button, yay! Android works like iOS and I'd go freaking insane.

That's not really true. The vast majority of iOS apps with nested pages will have breadcrumb navigation at the top, with a big button either saying "Back" or telling you exactly where you will be going back to.

When you launch from one app into another, that's a different matter. I agree that can be annoying/confusing. But no more annoying/confusing than I've found with Android, where I've had some apps go back to the calling app and others going back up their internal chain (to what would normally be the parent screen of the one that you've landed on).