Circle to Search gets slightly worse by dropping Google Lens shortcut

Just as it was announced that HONOR phones would get Circle to Search, the feature has received somewhat of a downgrade. Circle to Search has now lost one of its shortcuts.

Previously, when you activated Circle to Search, there would be a field at the bottom of the screen that you could tap to type perform a text query. On the right side of the field was the “G” logo that opens up the Google app. To the right of the G logo was a microphone icon for voice search and an icon for Google Lens. Finally, there was a button with a music note for song search and a second button for translations.

First spotted by 9to5Google, the UI for Circle to Search has now changed to no longer show the Google Lens icon. You can see the old behavior in the image on the left and the new behavior in the image on the right.

With this update, users have lost their two-step access to Google Lens regardless of where they are on their phone. It’s unclear why the company dropped the shortcut from the feature, but it could have something to do with trying to clean up the UI so it appears less cluttered.

This change has now been rolled out widely, so you should see the new look the next time you trigger it. Hopefully, this is just a bug or a test and the shortcut will come back in the future.

While Circle to Search may have lost one of its shortcuts, it could be gaining a rather useful ability. In our APK teardown from last week, we discovered the feature could start working on any video, including ones not on YouTube.