Google’s latest Android 17 QPR1 Beta now swaps the taskbar’s predicted app shortcuts for recently used apps, a change aimed at making big-screen navigation more reliable.
On foldables, the taskbar pins the last two active apps to the dock, letting users jump back into documents, browsers, messaging or other productivity tools without opening the app drawer.
The shift addresses a long-running complaint that algorithmic predictions kept changing, making the taskbar harder to trust and preventing users from building muscle memory.
The feature remains in the QPR beta track for testing before wider release, following Beta 7’s rollout to Pixel devices with the July 2026 security patch and bug fixes.