Warning for Android phone owners – Google mistake deletes feature on your device

IF you’re a proud owner of a Pixel smartphone you might want to stop and think before upgrading to the latest version of Android.

Android 13 was officially rolled out on Tuesday and while the newly-released software improves customisation and multitasking, it’s also said to delete a new feature found on Pixel handsets.

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The feature was introduced in an Android 13 beta update earlier this year and improved searches on the device by unifying them.

For example, it aligned the search bar at the bottom of the Pixel home screen with the search bar at the top of the app drawer. 

The feature worked by generating results from both the web and the Pixel phone when fired up, making for a much more intuitive experience.

However, Android users that have instilled the newest release of Android 13 have found the feature to have disappeared completely. 

Before, when the two search bars were unified, they both looked identical – with the Google “G” logo.

Now, only the home screen search bar has this design and the other, which is found at the top of the app drawer, now just says “Search your phone and more”.

According to a statement issued to 9to5Google, Google is aware of the issue and is looking to re-add the feature in an “upcoming release.”

Thankfully, the novel search tool will only be missed by those who installed the beta version of Android 13.

If you’re upgrading from Android 12, you shouldn’t notice that anything is missing.

Although it’s worth noting that Android 13 is so far only accessible to users with select Google Pixel phones – the oldest eligible model being the Pixel 4, which was released in 2019.

If you’re a Pixel user who’s yet to upgrade to the latest version of the OS, you can do so by heading to your device’s ‘Settings’ menu, tapping ‘System’ and selecting ‘System update’. 

The new software will be extended to Android-friendly devices that were not manufactured by Google, like the Samsung Galaxy, later this year.

Features you can expect from Android 13 include updates to Material You, Android’s customisation tool, as well as better security procedures running in the background.

Some of the new additions are comparable to existing features on the iPhone, while others are more novel concepts that are set to make Android more unique than ever before.

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