At the Samsung launch event earlier this year, we didn’t just see the Galaxy S24 series. There was also a surprise Google announcement, showing off its new “Circle to Search” feature on the newly released phone lineup. Like the name implies, you can circle anything on your screen to search, but the feature has a few more neat tricks up its sleeve. Almost two months after Galaxy Unpacked 2024, this wonderful feature still hasn’t made it to more than three phone series. As it stands, Samsung and Google are holding my favorite new Android feature hostage.
After the Samsung launch event, we quickly learned that Circle to Search was also coming to the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, but that was about it in the beginning. Circle to Search remained exclusive to the latest Pixel and Samsung phones. I hoped that this would change at least a bit with the March Feature Drop for Pixel phones this month, but Google is in a less generous mood than I’d hoped. The company only expanded Circle to Search support to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro this month, leaving everyone else with currently supported Pixel hardware in the dust. That includes people who shelled out up to $1,800 for the Pixel Fold last year.
Since the feature appears to be purely based on software, we’re not sure if there are any hardware restrictions holding back other phones or if there are other reasons why Google is so reluctant to roll it out to more devices. The company might be concerned about overloading the navigation bar with features on some of its devices. The hold gesture on Circle to Search may be easy to trigger accidentally on a device like the Pixel Fold, where you can swipe up the navigation bar a little to reveal a taskbar.
While this may be a valid concern for foldables, this isn’t an issue on virtually any other Pixel phone. In my book, there is no reason why the Pixel 7a, the Pixel 6 series, or the Pixel 5a should be left out. Things may be a little more complicated on phones from other manufacturers, since they may implement the navigation bar and buttons slightly differently from Google and Samsung. After all, Samsung removed the option to hide the navigation bar to accommodate the feature. But even then, this seems like a problem that should be easy enough to solve for all Android phone makers.
The reason why I’m mad that Circle to Search is rolling out this slowly is because it’s a genuinely useful feature. When I use it, I rarely actually circle to search, but instead I use it as a quick way to look up specific terms or places anywhere on my phone where copying and pasting would be impossible or take a lot more time. That’s true for PDF documents that sometimes render text as images, but it’s also helpful on social media platforms like Threads, where you can only copy the full text of a post.
I found this immensely helpful during my trip to MWC, where I’ve found myself using it on various press materials, some invitations sent in the form of images that make it rather difficult to punch in the place to go to in Google Maps, and just to quickly look up terms or people without manually launching a Google search.
On top of this, Circle to Search is genuinely well-thought-out. You can circle, scribble, or cross out to search, and you can zoom on the screen to dig into details. It’s even possible to move the search bar out of the way by swiping it to the top. Once you’re familiar with it, using it becomes second nature. Given Google’s track record of quickly killing unsuccessful projects, I absolutely want to see it on as many devices as possible to raise the usage statistics to hopefully make it stick around in the long run.
Unfortunately, it looks like it may take quite a while until we will see Circle to Search on more phones. A Samsung support document revealed that the feature will remain exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S24 and the Pixel lineup until “October 5.” At that point, we’d be looking at a stable Android 15 release, making it likely that Google is adding some requirements for other manufacturers to lay the foundation for Circle to Search to work across Android.
In the meantime, some other brands have other attempts at solving some of the mentioned problems. For example, former Huawei subsidiary Honor offers another smart solution to cut down on needless copy-and-pasting across apps. With its Magic Portal, introduced with the Magic 6 Pro, you can tap and hold text or other content in an app and then move it to either side of your screen, revealing a few suggested app targets to quickly share it to. That way, you can swipe over an address straight to Google Maps or a date right over to Google Calendar.
If more manufacturers have smart alternative ideas like this, we may not need Circle to Search as badly as I thought. If things pan out that way, Circle to Search could end up as a needlessly lost cause for Google. After all, the company is likely interested in giving Android users reasons to use its own search engine over home-made solutions from other manufacturers.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
