This is a common misconception. Google removed it for about a week, until they found and implemented a workaround. For all practical purposes, the universal search works exactly the same. I just tried it out on my Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.2.

Posting this from my Android tablet, it has no unified search for many months since it was updated after the lawsuit. Original Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 running the latest official Samsung 4.0 update.

So no, not a misconception. Many Android devices don't have it because of apple.

No, still a misconception. You're not running Android, you're running a version of Android adulterated by Samsung. The latest release of stock Android has unified search built in.

Good luck explaining this to the (vast majority) of Android users that have an "adulterated" version.

I think he intended to explain it to the parent poster, not to everyone in the world that uses Android.

For those who care, and that's most power users, they'll replace the brain dead Samsung version with their own customised versions of Android.

It's part of Google Now and I don't think it's bad at all. You just do the search, and then at the bottom of the screen you change from "Web" to "Tablet" and voila, results from tablet.

What is bad is the fact that Gmail doesn't support it. But it pulls up tweets, apps, chrome history, music, etc. Rather neat, in my opinion.

It works great with Google Now. I use it often like a launcher and just type a few letters and then click on the app I want to run.