Circle to Search may not roll out beyond the Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8 for a long while

Thank you for your patience

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We’vebeen impressedby the Circle to Search feature available on theSamsung Galaxy S24series and theGoogle Pixel 8phones, but if you don’t own one of those handsets then it looks like you’re going to be waiting a while to get it.

As per apress release(viaSamMobile), issued bySamsungin the Netherlands celebrating record preorders in the country, the Circle to Search feature “may become available on Android devices from other brands from October 5”.

So just the eight months to wait then, if you don’t have a Pixel 8 or Galaxy S24. It sounds as though Samsung has signed some kind of exclusivity deal withGoogle, so that the likes of OnePlus and Motorola can’t take advantage of it for a certain period of time.

Early October is of course around the time that we get new versions of Android – Android 14 was pushed out on October 4 – so it’s possible that Circle to Search will become more widely available as part of the Android 15 update.

When September ends

The October 5 reference now seems to have vanished from the press release – so it’s apparently information that Samsung and Google didn’t want in the public domain, and may have been included in error.

That said, one line that still remains states that Circle to Search will be exclusive to Samsung and Google phones until September – so older Pixels and Galaxy handsets might get the functionality before that October 5 date.

If you’ve got no idea what we’re talking about,Circle to Searchlets you circle, scribble, or tap on anything on screen to run a Google search on it. It’s likeGoogle Lens, but easier to access from whatever app you happen to be in.

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Those of you with phones that don’t already have Circle to Search, you might get it fromMicrosoftbefore you get it from Google: it looks as though a similar featurewill soon be introducedin Microsoft Edge on mobile.

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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.

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