My favorite Search Circle feature is also the lowest price

While on Google Circular to search is a useful tool in theory, I find that in practice the results vary significantly. Sometimes the answers he gives me are spot on, other times wildly inconsistent. As a result, Circle to Search has become one of those tools that I don’t use that much, despite all of its advertised benefits. That is, except for many useful features that I use more and more every day.

Circle to Search is generally good at identifying products available online, but my experience has been mixed when it comes to recognizing other items. It’s possible that this is because I’m in a non-Western market, as the LLM training data seems skewed towards the US, Europe and other Western regions.

Plants, insects, phone models, etc. I used the Search Circle to try to determine. I also tested it to see if it could identify the gender of my cat. Most of the time it doesn’t work properly. He often misidentifies the plants in my garden, choosing species from different parts of the world.

When I tried to use it to identify a bug infesting one of my plants, it even gave a different answer each time. The first time he told me they were zombie ants, so I thought I had a zombie Our last the situation in my garden. The only way to find an answer was to ask my own question Android Authority colleagues and using a single image on a local website to figure out that they are lantana beetles.

Circle to Search also thinks my HONOR 400 Pro is an iPhone, which I realized after some readers accused me of using an Apple device in some of my photos. And as for my cat, Circle to Search thinks her unusual ears are the result of her being a Scottish Fold or some other breed with folded ears. But this is partly due to pinnectomy. You can tell by the shape of his face and eyes that he’s not a Scottish Fold or one of those folded purebreds.

Overall, Circle to Search isn’t very accurate, so I don’t use it that much.

But there is an exception. Circle to Search is currently the easiest way to copy text in apps that don’t allow you to easily select parts of messages. I experience this most on WhatsApp and Slack, as both apps only allow you to copy the entire message. But when I hold down the home button to activate Circle for Search, I can highlight individual pieces of text and copy them to my clipboard.

I first tried it in a local Pokémon Go community group. In a group, we include our in-game names and friend codes as member tags so it’s easy to add each other for raids. However, WhatsApp does not allow you to transfer member tags. Tapping on them simply opens the person’s profile. We realized that by enabling the Circle to Search feature, we can easily copy each other’s friend codes. I didn’t even need to circle the text I wanted to copy. The preference for me was just tapping on it to select it.

I’ve tried this trick in other apps where it’s not always possible to select text. It includes previews from search engines, social media posts, tasks in apps, etc. that you normally wouldn’t be able to select. works for You can even use it to select text on images. Basically, Circle to Search provides on-demand OCR. Because it is connected to the home button Shortcut on Androidit’s also incredibly easy to activate.

Since Circle to Search is available on most new Android phonesit’s also a trick you can try even if you don’t own a Pixel. In fact, non-Pixel owners will benefit the most. Active Pixel phonesyou can now select text using the app changer UI. But this feature is not available on other Android devices.

While the simple OCR screen reader isn’t a feature that gets as much hype as extracting product recommendations from an image or translating text from another language, this simple feature is actually the one I use the most. Unlike photo identification, it is also less prone to errors. I have yet to encounter an instance where Circle to Search misreads the text I selected and copied. Simplicity and reliability are the recipe for success in this business.