In case you don’t know, when you summon the app drawer, you’ll get a Google search bar up top. With this, you’re able to search for apps and shortcuts on your device. This eliminates the need to scroll through your apps especially if you have a lot. When you use the search bar, you can also find shortcuts to certain functions within apps right from the drawer. You’ll be able to find your screenshots in Google Photos and other functions from other apps.

Now, you’ll be able to find more shortcuts using the on-device search function

You had a couple of shortcuts available to use before, but now the company is adding more. 9To5Google did an AKP breakdown of the Android System intelligence application (version S. 17), and they were able to find some interesting strings in the code. One example is: Search on Maps. This alludes to a shortcut for Google Maps for the on-devices search function. Summon the app drawer, type an address, and the system should, ostensibly, take you to that address in the Maps app. There were other strings found in the code, and they have YouTube, Play Store, and Settings in them. This means that, if these are pushed to the stable build of Android, you’ll be able to use more shortcuts. You’ll be able to search for a video, setting, or app and be taken right to those items.

This is not for Android 13 yet

This does sound like an interesting addition, but you won’t be able to try it out if you have the Android 13 beta. The on-device search feature didn’t make it to Android 13 for some reason. However, it could come as part of the next feature drop in June for Android 12. Meanwhile, we can’t rule out the possibility of this feature coming to Android 13 in later beta builds.