Google Search has been going to work these days. And not in a good way, either, as local search has now been removed. Verizon Galaxy S III users are currently experiencing the change, as we reported a few days ago. However, if you own a rooted Sprint Galaxy S III, then you are in luck, as XDA developer eyecon82 has posted instructions on how to get Local Search back.
Here’s the instructions pulled straight from eyecon82‘s XDA developers thread:
NOTE: You need ROOT! and probably Root Explorer, so you can change permissions, I did it all through the phone, I’m sure you could also use adb but this seemed simpler. Also, I don’t think this can in any way break your phone, but just to be safe, make a backup, at least in Titanium, and don’t blame me if something goes wrong.
1. Download the apk at the beginning of this thread, place it on your SDcard (or phone) where you’ll find it easily.
2. Install root explorer (or equivalent, I used root explorer though)
3. Go to /system/app and mount as R/W
4. move GoogleQuickSearch.apk somewhere else, just so you have it if you need to restore it
5. Go to where you placed the full-featured apk, copy/move it to /system/app
6. Long-Click on GoogleQuickSearch.apk, select permissions, and set to rw-r–r– (ie, row 1: yes yes no, row 2: yes no no, row 3: yes no no)
7. Hit okay, mount R/O, and quit
8. Go to Settings > Application Manager > All
9. Select Google Search, and clear data/cache
10. Select Google Services Framework, clear data/cache
11. Reboot
12. ???
13. Profit!!!
Everything you need will be found in the source link down below, including the APK that the developer is mentioning.
Unfortunately, as of this time the method only works on the Sprint Galaxy S III. Hopefully in the future, the developer can get this running on more versions of the Galaxy S III, which shouldn’t be too hard since they’re mostly all the same.
Props to the developer for finding this fix.
Source: XDA Via: AndroidCommunity
