In a new blog post, Google is encouraging mobile development pros to wean themselves and their users off the Menu button. In the past, all Android devices had a physical menu button. However, with the release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google stopped required device makers to include a physical button. Instead, it introduced a new Action Bar that would handle the functions previously accessed through the Menu button.
“Not only should your apps stop relying on the hardware Menu button, but you should stop thinking about your activities using a ‘menu button’ at all,” blogged Scott Main. “In order to provide the most intuitive and consistent user experience in your apps, you should migrate your designs away from using the Menu button and toward using the action bar. This isn’t a new concept — the action bar pattern has been around on Android even before Honeycomb — but as Ice Cream Sandwich rolls out to more devices, it’s important that you begin to migrate your designs to the action bar in order to promote a consistent Android user experience.”
