I have the same issue. Here you have a GIF with the back button behaviour. It replaces the search icon in the moment that search input gets focus or start typing.
It doesn’t happen if hideCancelButton="true". Regardless of this setting cancel button is never displayed, actually the recording is performed with hideCancelButton="false" to reproduce the issue. Other related issue about cancel button is Searchbar not showing clear and cancel button.
Search bar settings:
<ion-searchbar
[(ngModel)]=“searchCriteria”
hideCancelButton=“false”
(input)=“searchBoxInput($event)”
(cancel)=“searchBoxCancel($event)”
(search)=“searchBoxSearch($event)”
cancelButtonText=“Cancel”
placeholder=“Type to search…”
primary>
My config:
Cordova CLI: 6.2.0
Ionic Framework Version: 2.0.0-beta.7
Ionic CLI Version: 2.0.0-beta.30
Ionic App Lib Version: 2.0.0-beta.16
OS: Windows 8.1
Node Version: v4.4.5