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Circle to Search might start looking a little more like Apple Intelligence (APK teardown)
- Google could soon liven up Circle to Search with new colors.
- Activating the feature now shows a rainbow of colors without the shimmering animation.
- Colors now surround the circle you draw.
It’s hard to believe that Circle to Search has been around for almost a full year at this point. In the months since its debut, Google has made various improvements to the feature, like giving it the ability to automatically scan barcodes and QR codes. The next update may not add to the feature’s functionality, but it could make it a little more visually appealing.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
When you activate Circle to Search, it will start an animation where a wave of shimmering light overtakes the screen. There’s not really any particular color that’s associated with this animation. You can see an example of the current behavior in the video below.
While investigating the Google app (version 15.47.26.sa.arm64 beta), we noticed that Google is working on a change to Circle to Search that will give it some color. When activating the feature, you’ll no longer see the sparkling animation. What now floods the screen after Circle to Search is triggered is a rainbow. It looks somewhat reminiscent of the rainbow effect used for Apple Intelligence. The video below shows this new behavior.
In addition to the new animation, the tech giant has also slightly changed how circling looks. While circling creates a solid white line in the current version of the tool, this has been changed to surround the line in shifting colors.
This discovery follows another potential Circle to Search change we found last week. In that APK teardown, we learned that Google may be planning to move features like the translate and Google Lens buttons into an app drawer button.