Google Mobile Gets An App Store Search Feature - Not?
October 27, 2010
Finding a specific app on the iOS App Store is a drag. Between launching the App Store, jumping into search, typing your query, waiting for results, looking through them and selecting the right one, it takes way too much time. We've seen Google attempt to make a faster iOS App Store search of their own in the past; using their powerful algorithms and integrating them right into Google itself. They've done it with their own app earlier this year. Now, they are bringing this to their mobile search web as well.
Starting today, iOS users heading over to Google.com will notice a new tab when tapping "more" at the top of the page; it's called "iPhone apps." You can also access this new search option directly here. The idea is great. It could save us all a lot of time if we could just type the name of an app into Google. Maybe even using Google Instant in the future, and have the direct iTunes link to our app right there. Even better, what if Google could actually analyze the descriptions and reviews to help us find the right app we're looking for? That's what it looks like they're going for with this.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work at the moment. This is very disconcerting for a public Google search product. Hitting search simply sends us back to some strange main page. Are they still rolling this out? Has Apple locked Google out because they were stressing their servers? At this point we don't know.
If you get it to work, drop us a line in the comments. We'd love to find out more about it.