Android Search Circle Is Now on IPhone (Sort Of)
You can now use a feature very similar to Android’s “search circle” on iPhone. While it’s not exactly what it’s called, both the Chrome app and the Google app now allow you to circle text or images to search for anything you select using Google Lens. Limitation? On Android, you can use the 360-degree search feature throughout your phone, but on iPhone, this feature is limited to Chrome and Google apps.
Once you’ve loaded a webpage in the Google iPhone app, tap the three-dot button in the top right corner and select Search This Screen . In Chrome for iOS, open any web page, click the three-dot button in the bottom right corner, and select Search Screen with Google Lens . You’ll then see a gradient layer on the web page where you can circle, tap, or highlight the part you want to find.
Google will then use Lens to determine what you’re watching and display search results accordingly. I used it to find house crows, to learn more about the bird that has a habit of sitting at my window demanding food, and to check what it likes to eat (turns out it’s almost everything). The new feature works quite quickly in both Chrome and the Google app, and handles a variety of request types quite well. This is to be expected since Google Lens has been around for a long time and is generally quite reliable. It’s really just a new, more intuitive way to select items to search for.
I also tried a few different gestures instead of twirling (everything from tapping to drawing an octagon) and they all worked pretty well. If you want to search for a single word, tapping or highlighting works best, but for a larger block of text or part of an image, you can use other gestures. Google says you can use any gesture that feels natural, so feel free to use whatever you like.
Google also announced that you’ll see more AI reviews in Lens search results. You won’t be able to block these results here since they’re in Google’s own apps, but there are plenty of ways to block AI in your favorite browser .