Google Lens

Lens will only become more important going forward, but Google’s challenge in the meantime is raising awareness about its extensive set of capabilities. Some tweaks to Google Lens now aim to simplify how visual search works.

Alongside Live View directions in Maps and 3D Animals, Lens is one of Google’s key investments in augmented reality. Google UK is now promoting the visual search tool with a “Behind the Lens with Google Pixel” promo campaign.

Google’s biggest consumer-facing augmented reality offerings today are Lens and Live View in Maps. At WWDC 2021, Apple announced it was planning to go after those two features with iOS 15 this fall.

For a few months now, Chrome for Android has had an easy shortcut to search for an image you find online using Google Lens. Now it seems Chrome for Android may be gaining more handy Google Lens shortcuts.

Update 4/29: This feature has begun to roll out in Chrome Beta for Android.

Google Lens has begun to appear in the Pixel Launcher’s search bar side-by-side with the Google Assistant, in a new test.

When taking screenshots in Android 11+, a preview appears in the bottom-left corner for quick sharing or editing. A translate suggestion from Google Lens now also appears here on applicable screen captures. 

Besides being its own app, Google Lens is also available in Image Search, Photos, and integrated across Android. Google is now bringing Lens to the desktop web inside Google Photos for convenient text copying through optical character recognition (OCR).

Even after trawling through almost all aspects of the recent Android 12 Developer Preview, things slip the net. One of those looks to be the long-overdue addition of a Google Lens translate option within the Android recent apps panel.

Google Lens has long been part of Google Photos to help you visually search images. On Android, Google Lens is now a more prominent part of Photos by identifying what pictures would benefit from the analysis and search tool.

Since it was announced in 2017, Google’s visual search tool has seen two (live) logos. Google Lens is now getting a third logo that better reflects how it’s a camera for looking up things in the real world.

From Maps Live View to 3D Animals and other models in Search, Google’s current work in augmented reality is focused on phones. The other big investment is Google Lens, with it emerging today that the product is losing lead Aparna Chennapragada to Robinhood.

The Google Lens app today is geared towards analyzing live images in real-time, but a new gallery view makes it easier to sift through screenshots and other pictures already in your camera roll.

Since last year, Google has been working on letting you perform translations in its visual search tool without an internet connection. Google Lens is now rolling out offline translate on Android.

Lens closed out last year with a Pixel Camera-inspired redesign and more shortcuts in other apps to launch the visual search tool. Google is now testing a new Lens icon that better communicates its functionality.

Whether looking through your camera or browsing images on the web, Google Lens is a great way to learn more about what’s visible in a photo. Today, the Google app and Chrome for Android are gaining an easy way to search almost any image through Google Lens.

Google Lens has long been tied to Assistant on Android, while iOS users have access to it as part of Search. The Google app on Android is now testing a prominent Lens shortcut.

Back in June, we enabled a Google Camera-inspired redesign of Google Lens. It’s now rolling out to some Google app beta users on Android.

For the past several weeks, we’ve been tracking a math solver for Google’s visual search tool. Today, the Google Lens “Homework” filter was officially detailed and it covers more than just equations.

Earlier this month, we spotted Google’s keyboard for Android working on automatic dark/light themes. Those using the Gboard 9.6 beta are now encountering another feature that we previously enabled: Google Lens integration.