Google may be a search company first and foremost, but Ice Cream Sandwich shifts Android away from a dedicated search button and replaces it with the app switcher. Using virtual buttons has benefits for modders, however, and MoDaCo’s Paul O’Brien has wasted no time in adding a dedicated search option in the ICS button bar.

As you’d expect, tapping it brings up the search dialog, just as the dedicated search buttons on previous Android phones would do. Google hasn’t exactly excised search from Android 4.0 altogether – in fact the homescreen now has a persistent search box across the top, that’s carried over all five panes – but this dedicated key makes it a little easier.

Sometimes it’s the little tweaks that can make the most difference to daily use, and this could well be one of them. No word on when exactly Paul might release the mod at this stage, but he tells us it will be “very shortly.”