While some smartphone OEMs are still struggling to deliver Android 11, the second developer preview of Android 12 is already out in the wild. In addition to a new lockscreen pattern design and one-handed mode, there are a bunch of other things that Google isn't quite ready to show off. One such currently-hidden feature is a revamped Google Search bar that could bring new customization options to the Pixel launcher.

This isn't a user-facing feature yet and will need to be manually enabled — like the folks at 9to5Google did — in DP2. While the current Pixel Launcher search bar can already search for things on your phone (like apps and settings) as well as the web, it looks like this new one could be separated from the Google app to speed up on-device search. There could even be a dedicated menu that allows the toggling on and off of different sources.

As seen in the screenshots above, search results using this new bar will include apps, app shortcuts, app slices, contacts, settings, widgets, and Play Store listings. There's also a source dubbed "nasa" but we're not sure about what that means. Whether or not web search results will still show up here while in the app launcher remains to be seen — it could be limited to just the search bar on the homescreen.


For more about Android 12, check out our ongoing series coverage here, or bookmark our regularly updated changelog and check back in later. If you want to install the developer preview on your own device, find out how in our Android 12 download guide.