Pixel launcher exclusive toGoogle’s range of Pixel phonespacks some impressive capabilities. For instance, the launcher’s search widget pinned to the bottom of the home screen can perform the duties of a conventional Google search bar, but it also serves results from your contacts and app settings. In a recent development, Google has added support for looking up Quick Settings tiles in the Pixel search bar.
Using Pixel Launcher search, you may look up individual items and sections from the Settings app. Although the Settings app has its own search feature, accessing the launcher search from the home screen is quicker and easier. We can add some of these toggles for system functions to the notification shade through Quick Settings toggles. Android also allows app developers to add their own toggles to the shade for swift access, because we can pull down the notification shade and access those controls in almost every situation, including on the lock screen.
However, after updating to theAndroid 14QPR2 Beta 2,9to5Googlenoticed that the Pixel Launcher search tool also shows Quick Settings tiles in the results. In order of priority, the search results first display the Quick Settings tiles, followed by autocomplete suggestions from Google Search, matches from your list of installed apps, and the Settings app subsections, which are mentioned at the end. We noticed this behavior in our own devices running Beta 2 as well, suggesting this is eventually going to be a widespread change, even if just a few beta testers have it now.
Screenshots showing Quick Settings Tiles appearing in Pixel Launcher Search results
The search results are fully interactive, just like the toggles in your notification shade. So, the Wi-Fi section in the Pixel Launcher search results will dynamically show you available Wi-Fi networks and their network strengths. However, the results don’t include toggles for third-party apps, or anything besides system settings.
Although the Pixel Launcher search gave you access to the same system settings through shortcuts to the correct Settings pages earlier, the new approach includes more options which weren’t available previously, such as those forExtra DimandFlashlight. Moreover, Quick Settings tiles are more uniform and visually consistent than individual toggles from the Settings app, which show up lower down in the list of results.
Google could roll this feature out to all Pixel users with the QPR2 stable release, but we didn’t have to toy with any developer settings to get it to work for this round of testing. Hopefully, sup[port for third-party Quick Settings tiles will be added too.
