It took a year, but Circle for research finally won me from Google Lens

Last year, when Google introduced Circle to search with the Galaxy S24 Ultra, I was a bit scratching my head. As a pixel owner who has been using Google Lens for a few years now, I found this unnecessary double feature. Who would like an alternative to the Gimmicky objective whose only claim to glory was to add an unnecessary gesture more before giving you results?!

It turns out that the answer is that many people want it. In each survey that we have done here Android authority Or on our social platforms, Circle To Search has obtained a lot of positive approval, so much so that I decided to make it a real shake instead of continuing to reject it. So, in the past two months, I have forced myself to jump the goal and go and encircle to search instead, and as much as I hate admitting it, I love it. Prefer it even. Here is why.

Even if Google Lens exists in the Google Search widget, Google App, Chrome Browser and Google Photos, the reason why I loved it in recent years is not only due to the objective itself but also To the fact that I can trigger it anywhere and at any time on my pixel phones. I just slide on any screen in any application, and I can select any image to trigger the lens on it. It works even in applications where there are no selectable images, such as Instagram. Or in websites where the image is integrated into the background.

The problem with this is that it is an exclusive advantage of pixels which is linked to the pixel launcher. On any other phone, the shift towards Android overview does not allow me to trigger the lens, so I must first take a screenshot, open it on the photos, then use the lens on it . An silly and long bypass solution that very few people knew.

What the circle to be sought is to democratize the objective and allow more Android phones and users to access it. For the moment, yes, Circle To Search is limited to a few dozen non -pixel phones, but it is a few tens more than the gesture of the sliding of Google Lens. Many Galaxy S, Z and A series A series A, as well as some Motorola, OnePlus, Nothing, Xiaomi, Honor and Tecno models.

So now, that I take my Galaxy S24 Ultra, nothing of phone 2, Honor 200 pro, or my faithful Pixel 9 Pro XL, I can look for things on my screen in the same way. I don’t have to stop and think about how I can trigger the goal here and there; I type and simply hold the navigation handle and surround what I want on my screen. I love this consistency, even if I would like to see Google bring it to all Android phones once and for all. The spokesperson for a few models from each manufacturer no longer makes sense.

Although I like the reading function of my pixel phone, it is not as easy to trigger on demand. There are often times when I watch a video on YouTube, Instagram or another social media platform where music is not labeled and I need to know which song is. In these cases, I turned to the circle to search to resolve my dilemma. My husband, who often catches new musical suggestions for basketball and football videos, also liked Circle to search because of this.

By putting aside the strange name of the functionality in this case, Circle To Search’s Song Search works very well. He uses the musical search for Google / Google Assistant, and I had good results with, whether it be the original music, a cover, a live interpretation, an Acapella version or even someone buzzing the notes.

The music icon is right there, so I just have to press the game when a video is in reading, and I get the result: easy. It is a lot, much, much easier than trying to trigger the assistant’s musical recognition while playing something in another application or finagging with two phones to identify a song playing one on the other. Bless the lords of technology to have returned this so simple now!

While the development of Google Lens has stalled for a long time, improvements in the circle to search were all the rage at Casa Google. The functionality has received a lot of love in the past year thanks to drops of pixels and other updates. From the musical research mentioned above to the IA previews, a new sharing button to send my friends this draw for the unbalanced champion league, a pixel screenshot to save the cover of a book Whether I want to read and shortcuts to see my research history or delete the last 15 minutes, there are many new capacities in which I can search. These are even integrated shortcuts from Google Lens for telephone numbers, websites, cards and calendar events, which are absolute time savers.

One of my favorite use cases, however, was the translations and reading the QR code. I love to use Circle to search to translate a whole menu or page in an unknown language in English so that I can read it. It was very useful during recent trips to Lisbon and Tirana. It also works on social networks where the translation option is not available or is not visible on this page / tweet / post / etc.

The other task that surrounded research facilitated the digitization of QR codes from the screen of my phone. It confuses me that it was not already one thing – not even with the objective – and I still remember when I bought my first ESIM and I had to display the QR code on my husband’s phone for the CT to mine. Lens has since improved a little and now gives me the code to install ESIM, but it is nothing compared to the detection of integrated QR code of the circle to search for each type of code, including ESIM installations. I trigger it, and I don’t even need to get around or type anything; The QR code is detected by default with an icon to configure an ESIM or open the web page of a QR code. As simple as that.

Look, if I’m honest, I know Google could have kept Google Lens and add all these features. In fact, the search circle is not new technology; It’s just a new gesture that triggers the objective with some additional features, so why did Google have to develop a double and rename it?

I think the answer lies more than all marketing. “Google Lens” does not seem fun or interesting; He returns to an era centered on the company. “Circle to Search” is catchy, cool and does not necessarily carry the weight of the Big G with, even if it is essentially a Google functionality. But the name also acts as a description of functionality, which is much clearer than the wave wording of “lens”.

I also think that this research circle has won a lot of love not only because of its name but also because the gesture itself is simple and satisfactory. Unlike the objective, I like that I can specify exactly the parts of an image that I want to watch or select text in addition to an image to add context. Sometimes that’s all I need to identify a nice watch face for my Pixel 3 watch or a new wallpaper for my phone. There is also something completely satisfactory in the simple fact of drawing a circle on the screen instead of dragging the text anchors with precision through words and letters.

At this point, I am a convert. I rarely slide for the Google lens, I just make a circle … to search. I would love to see Google move it to all Android phones, and perhaps integrate it with Gemini without having to follow the screenshot to start asking an article.