Android 14 QPR2 beta 2 brings new 'Circle to Search' gesture to Pixel phones

With the latest Android 14 QPR2 beta 2, Android expert Mishaal Rahman discovered that Google is prepping a ‘Circle to Search’ gesture in Android 14 that’s meant to make it easier than ever to find information directly from what’s on your Pixel screen.

Not that it isn’t already easy to search your screen. Thanks to Google Lens, all you need is to call up Assistant on any screen and hit ‘Search screen’ chip and voilà – knowledge awaits. Basically, this action will share a screenshot of the current app with Lens for analysis. You can then tap on any detected text or image to get more relevant search results or perform other actions. But with the update to Android 14 QPR2 beta 2, Google has injected a new ‘Circle to Search’ gesture that’s supposed to make finding things on your Pixel screen way much easier.

According to Google’s description of the gesture, Pixel users will be required to “touch & hold the home button at the bottom of the screen, then circle or highlight anything to search.” But Mishaal notes that this particular toggle is for the 3-button navigation system. Apparently, there’s a similar toggle for those who use gestures for navigation. He further speculates that ‘Circle to Search’ will likely initiate a partial screen search using Assistant with Bard, but the latter is still unavailable so this remains an educated guess.

Being a hidden feature, I can’t tell you when it will be available for public beta testing. But my guess is it won’t be long, since I expect it to be part of the stable release come March 2024.