New Google Search results pages for iPhone
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 | 7:30 PM
Starting today in the U.S., when you go to google.com on your iPhone and do a search, you'll see search results that are better optimized for your phone. You'll still get the full comprehensiveness and quality of regular Google Search results, but laid out in a more efficient and user-friendly arrangement.
Results are formatted to be neatly displayed on the mobile screen, so there's no need to scroll side to side. Local search results now include easier-to-press "Get Directions" and click-to-call links. Maps are shown by default in the case of a single listing or accessible by the "Show map" link for multiple listings. For those of you wanting to access the classic desktop search results format, it's only a click away, with the "Classic" link near the bottom of each page.
For now, the newly formatted results pages are available only in U.S. English and for iPhone and iPod touch firmware version 2.x. Over time, we intend to make the newly formatted results pages available through other search entry points on the iPhone, on additional devices, and in more language and country combinations.
Labels: Google Mobile Search, iphone, Mobile Blog
15 comments:
Josh said...
November 12, 2008 at 9:29 AM
Michael Boggs said...
Now the "Google app" needs to be updated. search results in the official i phone app still use the old style.
otherwise, I love it.
November 12, 2008 at 9:34 AM
Unknown said...
What I would really love to see (as both a fan of Google and the iPhone) is that when I perform a search from Safari's Google box that the results come back in the form of the mobile website -- and not the standard Google site.
Is this already possible and I have just been missing something? I'm not sure if it's Apple who needs to point to a different URL or if it's Google who needs to be more aggressive with user-agent strings and cookies.
Thanks, and great work guys!
November 12, 2008 at 9:56 AM
David Ormesher said...
Any chance you can add a "desktop" search of the iphone, too? I really miss the email inbox search functionality of the bberry.
November 12, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Unknown said...
Oh man, I think I missed reading this line the first time around:
"Over time, we intend to make the newly formatted results pages available through other search entry points on the iPhone"
So, that answers my question.
Well, since we're on the topic of requesting features, how about having the search also be able to search my Gmail and Gcal since Apple refuses to add that functionality. That would really be great and faster than loading Gmail for that. You could even pre-pend a seach term like "gmail Hi Mom". Just a thought.
November 12, 2008 at 10:05 AM
mshick said...
Please make the search results pages sniff the iPhone browser agent on results pages, or at least make that a configurable option.
I use the Safari search bar, and only for a brief time, when I first got my iPhone, would it give me the mobile formatted pages when I searched. Ever since the Google Mobile redesign nearly a year ago this has been broken. This would make my searching so much nicer that I'd happily look at an ad in the results.
November 12, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Emre Akkas said...
I would gladly give up all these fancy things in exchange of push gmail...
November 12, 2008 at 3:41 PM
Unknown said...
When I try this, the results are no longer zoomable. I am legally blind and need to be able to increase the font size in some manner.
Please consider this when making future adjustments. Alternatives would be appreciated.
November 13, 2008 at 7:00 AM
Unknown said...
I am not seeing the upgraded search feature on my Iphone 3G
November 13, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Anonymous said...
hey guys in live uae... so alwys when i goto google.com i get google.ae by deafult and trouble is that i dont really know how to read arabic, so how i can change the settings to make it open the main google.com/m/ page.
November 15, 2008 at 6:01 AM
Will said...
Any updates on push Gmail for the iPhone? Many users would love to see Google step up to the plate and offer at least an explanation on why we haven't seen this yet for this platform. My guess: Apple does not want to play nice (as usual) with Google on push Gmail in fear of Google pulling a significant share of users away from their own MobileMe service, primarily because Google's products are far superior with much tighter integration than what Apple is currently offering. Regardless, Google can save the day by at least offering some insight.
November 18, 2008 at 6:14 AM
Alex Torrance said...
Sadly in the UK the search results get redirected to google.co.uk, will you be releasing this feature to all your localised sites?
November 18, 2008 at 6:22 AM
Sampson said...
Where is the love for WinMo???
November 18, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Darcy said...
I like the new results page, but I'm being driven crazy by feature not mentioned here. When you click on a link on this page, the resulting page is also reformatted, leading to really unreadable pages, since they are simply streamed into a narrow column, rather than designed for the iphone. To see the resulting page in a designed, readable version, you can scroll to the bottom and click on a very very tiny "View in HTML" link. The displayed URL shows an googl.com/gwt address so it's hard to even know where you are, since the redesigned page may not include a displayed logo. GIVE ME MY OLD PAGES BACK. I GO THE IPHONE FOR ITS ABILITY TO DISPLAY FULL HTML PAGES.
February 21, 2009 at 8:38 AM
Josh said...
I really love the google page optimized for the iPhone. It's amazing and great... BUT when I search from the search box in Safari mobile, i get the regular version of the search results. UGGGHH!!
I've found hacks to modify the google GoogleTLDs.plist file, and can now get results from the mobile site... but the big problem now is that I live in Cambodia and so I get a much weaker version of the site for some reason.
I wish there was a way to set my account to ALWAYS give me english results from every type of device when I'm logged in. I also wish the mobile safari search had more options so I wouldn't have to do some ugly hack to get the mobile search page from a *$#&ing mobile phone.
Is it just me?? How can we fix this Google? Apple??
March 27, 2009 at 9:29 AM
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