1 week Ago By admin-dominor
Google has found a way to bring a variation of its clever “Circle to Search” gesture to iPhone users. The new interaction, launched in January, allows Android users to search from anywhere on their device by circling, highlighting, scribbling or tapping, making it easier to engage with Google Search from any screen. Of course, a similar option has not been available to iPhone users, as Google doesn’t control the iOS operating system as it does on Android.
To work around this problem, Google is now using Apple’s Action Button on iPhone 15 Pro devices to enable a quick way to visually search anything on your screen with just a press of a button. No longer a simple ring/silent switch, the Action Button allows users to customize the functionality of the iPhone’s side button to their own needs. It can be configured to launch the camera, translate a conversation, enable a Focus mode, launch the Flashlight and more.
Or, users can assign a Shortcut of their own to the Action Button to start another task, like kicking off a ChatGPT voice session, for example. In Google’s case, the company has launched a shortcut that lets iPhone users start a visual search via Google Lens. “It’s basically circle to search but faster!,” noted Google Lens design manager Minsang Choi in , where he introduced the shortcut created by the Google App iOS team.
(Apparently, this was an unapproved release. We’ve asked Google for comment on the takedown.) While Google’s iOS app already off.
