Hi,
Yes you can do it the long way.
Given you go to Google.com
When you open the dev tools
And search for the following: //*[substring(@id, string-length(@id) - string-length('Fqb') + 1) = 'Fqb']
Then the search text area will be located
The actual id of the search textarea is "APjFqb"
Cheers,
Adrian.