so android has a feature called "circle to search" where you can take a screenshot of photo and circle things to highlight them, and google will tell you about what you're looking at. for example, take a photo of a cable and circle it to learn that it's a HDMI cable. cool cool cool.

except this feature is only supported on specific allowlisted models. if your phone isn't on the list, it doesn't work. and google seemingly doesn't publish the list. i found an article that extracted a list of devices that are "ready" for circle to search from google play console, and my phone's on the list, but it doesn't have the feature. (yes, my phone is up to date, including google play system updates.)

but you know what i can do on my phone? i can take a photo or screenshot, share it to google lens, and draw a box around an item to learn about what it is. so there's an extra step involved in having to share the image, and i can only draw boxes and not circles... but it works fine. i can do exactly the same thing that circle to search does, it's just clunkier and more obtuse.

why. why does google deem my phone unworthy of drawing a circle. why is my phone in the "ready for circle to search" list despite not having the feature enabled. why is there an allowlist of devices.

see, if this was exclusive to the latest pixels, i'd understand. they're trying to get you to upgrade your old pixel or swap to their ecosystem for this cool feature. it's a unique selling point. whatever. but it's not pixel exclusive! if i upgrade my overpriced samsung to an even more overpriced samsung, google doesn't get anything from me they don't already have! what's the motive?? i could even downgrade to an old galaxy S and still get this feature!

maybe i'm expecting too much from the company that sells a version of Android TV called Google TV while also renaming the Play Movies & TV app to Google TV which has nothing to do with YouTube TV, a streaming subscription for YouTube that lets you watch broadcast television on your Google TV or Android TV or your Google Pixel (Powered by Android) or your Android device with Google Play Services; YouTube, of course, being an app where you can purchase movies and TV shows.