Google Instant for mobile launches for Apple's iPhone 4 and Google's Android 2.2 smartphones, with the technology coming for more OSes in the future.
Google Nov. 4 brought its Instant predictive search technology to Apple's
iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android operating system.
Google Instant guesses users' queries as they begin to type
them. The technology, which aims to save the average searcher 2 to 5 seconds
per search, has analysts predicting Google can bolster its already considerable
search revenues.
The company
launched Instant in September with the promise to bring the
technology to the company's mobile search application for smartphones in the
fall.
That promise has been met in the form of a beta version of Google Instant
for mobile that
runs on handsets running Android 2.2 and on iPhones and
iPods running iOS 4 in the United States
in English. Google will support additional countries and languages and more
devices.
iPhone 4 owners or users of Android devices such as the Motorola Droid X,
Droid 2, HTC Evo 4G and HTC
Droid Incredible can go to google.com in their phone's browser and tap the
Google Instant "Turn on" link beneath the search box.
When users begin to type in Google.com, the search box snaps to the top of
their screen.
As users type, they will see gray text in the search box, signaling a
dynamic prediction of what a user is searching for. There is no need to tap the
search button or the enter key. This is the same process as it is for Google
Instant on the desktop.
Results for the first prediction appear automatically; tapping on the other
predictions will display those results. Users can easily control Instant on
their mobile device by tapping the "Turn on" or "Turn off"
link.
To do this, Google had to build a new AJAX
and HTML5 process for mobile that "dynamically updates the page with new
results and eliminates the need to load a new page for each query," Google
software engineer Steve Kanefsky said in a corporate blog post.
Google Instant for mobile comes more than two weeks after Jonathan
Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president for product management,
said it was coming on the company's third-quarter earnings
call.
Rosenberg also cast aside the
notion that Instant was designed to help Google boost its search revenue
streams, adding that "from a resource standpoint, it's actually pretty
expensive."
A company spokesperson confirmed that Google had purchased additional
computer servers to deliver the results, but declined to say what the cost was
to not only build Instant but to keep it pumping out queries in such a rapid
fashion.
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