Along with the Action Bar, Android 3.0 introduced the SearchView widget, which can be included as a menu item when creating a menu. This is now the recommended UI pattern to provide a consistent user experience.
The following screenshot shows the initial appearance of the Search icon in the Action Bar:
The following screenshot shows how the Search option expands when pressed:
If you want to add Search functionality to your application, this recipe will walk you through the steps to set up your User Interface and properly configure the Search Manager API.