This is a shockingly common problem for people. I can tell they feel uncomfortable just typing without a place "where" the typing will go. Many people will click the magnifying glass and then again place the cursor into the search field. Same with google, they will click the search field, then the cursor moves to the address bar, they feel surprise, and then place the cursor in the address bar a second time.
In many applications (JIRA, Vim) typing without being in a text input field can cause all kinds of trouble. Heck, in browsers if you type 'backspace' you can end up going back and page and blowing away all of your precious form input. Not to mention the very real possibility that their work, the text they've typed, will be dropped on the floor. We have been trained by these dangers to avoid typing without a text prompt.
This is why Google switched the 'Back' function to Alt+Left Arrow in Chrome. You could be trying to delete something out of a web form and accidentally leave the page.
That's when I switched to Firefox. I've been using the backspace key to go to the previous page or directory since the mid-90's and I never accidently left a page when trying to delete stuff.
I think in the current iteration of Windows, you're supposed to get a permanently visible keyboard icon in a taskbar when in tablet mode, clicking which will summon the on-screen keyboard. At least that's how it worked on the two Windows 2-in-1s I worked on over the last year.
I will admit still being baffled why Google wants us to type searches into the address bar. When I first saw that behavior, I thought "but what if it's a valid URL?". Sure enough, I've made that mistake several times.
I'm sure it's a mess for less tech savvy people trying to do searches on companies that have .com or .net suffixes on their names.
Because they want you to use google as your portal to the internet.
I change my Firefox copies to have separate boxes, and no search from url bar. I don’t recall offhand as it’s muscle memory, and I’m on a phone, but I think it’s ctrl-k for location and ctrl-l for search.
I know a computer programmer, well former web developer, who still tries to dabble in programming who "clicks the magnifying glass" to search the start menu. Same with the chrome search bar on a new tab.
He also refuses to learn shortcut keys because he never learned to touch type, and refuses to type even 1 character more than he has to, so he has a lot of common things he would type stored on a virtual clipboard that he recalls with ctrl+`, and will paste from that to avoid typing.
This is a shockingly common problem for people. I can tell they feel uncomfortable just typing without a place "where" the typing will go. Many people will click the magnifying glass and then again place the cursor into the search field. Same with google, they will click the search field, then the cursor moves to the address bar, they feel surprise, and then place the cursor in the address bar a second time.