Topics: Apple Unvarnished : Digital Life : Google : Mobile : Web Tech

iPhone Free Software: Google Mobile App Streamlines Search

Posted by Mitch Wagner, Jul 16, 2008 05:35 PM

Google Mobile App boosts the already powerful partnership of Google and the iPhone, making searches even faster and more efficient. The app searches Google of course, and it uses your iPhone's built-in location awareness to perform local searches. It also searches your contacts. You can do these things from your iPhone without Google Mobile, but the app provides a slicker and more streamlined interface.

Google Mobile
Google Mobile (iTunes link) grows on you over time. When I first heard about it, I was baffled -- the search field in Mobile Safari works just fine as is. But the Google Mobile app improves the iPhone's built-in Google integration by providing type-ahead anticipation of what you're looking for, suggesting related searches as you type, and integrating several different kinds of searches into one. The Google Mobile app does a better, faster job of searching the Contacts app than Contacts can search itself.

This app is good -- but not good enough that I'd want to pay for it, at least not until and unless future versions come out that can do more. Fortunately, it's free.

But where the heck are all the other Google apps for the iPhone? Where are Gmail for the iPhone, Google Reader, Google Docs? Google Mobile is nice, but iPhone versions of those apps would've been even better.

More free iPhone software:

Twitterific Puts Twitter In Your Pocket

UrbanSpoon Is A Fun Way To Find Local Restaurants

Zenbe Lets You Make Checklists

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