YourGoogle Chrometabs and bookmarks might soon be integrated right into your Pixel phone’s launcher search. New Chrome flags suggest that the integration could go live sooner than later. This would make it possible to launch right back into your browsing session without opening Chrome, and could help you reduce the number of tabs you have opened. It might also make it simpler to find information you’ve already saved to your bookmarks.
One new flag that points at this functionality is called “Integrate with Android App Search,” and was spotted by LanceAdams on Telegram. While the Pixel Launcher’s search experience isn’t always called App Search, Google called it that in a 2021 blog post introducing the feature to Android 12, asMishaal Rahmanexplains. A previous version of the flag even made it more explicit what exactly this integration is supposed to look like: “Donate the tabs and bookmarks to Android App Search.”
While it’s likely that a feature like this would first come to Pixel phones, Mishaal Rahman speculates that other manufacturers could also integrate it due to the open nature of the App Search module. It’s a Project Mainline module inAndroid 13, which makes it possible for Google to update the system feature without a full system update, similar to how the company modularized countless other parts of the OS.
The idea that Pixel Launcher’s search could come to other phones isn’t entirely new. In 2022, evidence was discovered that the Pixel Launcher could let you search within more apps and even come to third-party launchers. We haven’t heard much about this since, but the newly discovered Chrome flag and its generalized “App Search” mention make a more broadly available solution more likely.
In the meantime, we found a third-party app that replicates the Pixel search experience pretty well on other phones and even adds a few extra capabilities on top, aptly namedPixel Search.
