Google has released a native client for Google search for S60 phones. The application, available via the Google mobile site, places a shortcut to a Google search box on the Idle screen (unfortunately only for devices with either a 'Ctrl' or 'pencil/edit' key), but is also accessible via the usual application launcher on all devices. Typing in a query to the search box and pressing search opens up Web and takes you to the results page for that Google query in one go. It uses the new Google Mobile search service we mentioned a few weeks ago. Read on for more.
Last week Google and Nokia announced that Google Search would be added to the Nokia Mobile Search application that ships with all recent S60 devices. This means that Google Search will soon be available via Nokia's search client. As such, Google's release of its own native search client is something of an unnecessary repetition. However the benefits of the Google search client is its immediate availability, its specificity and the fact it is much faster loading than Nokia's client. I was able to go from a standing start to a search result in around 5 seconds (less if you're quick at T9). The likely time from a cold start (no existing connection) is around 15 seconds. That's likely to be quicker than going via the browser, although if you have Google set as your home page in the browser the advantages are relatively small. |
