Lifting screenshots woo

And after that huge N-Gage post, something quick. Youse guys all know how much I’m picky about search apps. *cough cough* So I’m glad someone out there knew how to make a good search app/widget.

Q Search by Russell Beattie does everything I want, fast and simple. Tap shortcut on homescreen, get a text box, type terms, hit enter/ok, get a browser page with results. Add additional search shortcuts for more efficiency in the least number of steps. Perfect.

(now I’ll try to edit it to use desktop google instead of google.com/m/, personal preference)

Update: Opening the main index.html to edit it, easy as expected. My copy uses desktop google and has a black background to match the 5800′s theme.

Update 2: Just found about iSearch, a new widget inspired by Russell’s, while it looks slightly better, it doesn’t forget the search term after hitting enter, plus you have to backspace the ‘type here’ message before. I can probably fix those. (I like where the settings are though, just add some visual indicator :P)

PS. Why people didn’t think about making those kinds of widgets before? lol

Update 3: So I did heavily modify iSearch.

My version

Changes:

• Removed all graphics switching them for css and text (using the enter character for the green and white arrows). (Makes it load faster, by less than a second, but still, faster :P)
• Made it use the desktop version of Google Search
• Switched Bing search for Last.fm mobile.
• Reordered the services, so only stuff I don’t usually use get covered by the keyboard.
• Removed the “type here” text. (Better for virtual keyboard phone.)
• Disabled the remember last search behavior.
• Changed name to “Search2″ (I hate iNamed stuff, and just Search would mix it up with Nokia Search.
• Changed the icon too, for a random magnifying glass I found somewhere.

moubail.com mentions you can’t redistribute the file without his permission, so I won’t upload my version.

But people don’t realize that this app is competing not with the internal browser (which btw, setting google as your homepage is cheating), it’s rival is Nokia’s own Search app, and it completely kicks its ass. See the videos below for comparison. I also measured the time between the first keystroke to when ebay starts loading in the browser.

Nokia Search app, 53 seconds

Google Search app, 13 seconds (and just because I missed the link when clicking in the browser =P)

And just for fun

Browser Bookmark, 24 seconds

You can take your own conclusions, my personal choice is the google bookmark, since it’s moderately fast and it doesn’t have a ugly shortcut like the Google app.

For me, if the google app had a standard standby plugin (which Nokia really need to open the api for) it would be a killer app.If only because it opens and connects the browser in the background, while you’re typing. So when you’re searching for big things, it takes off a HUGE part of the loading process.

And this again shows what a joke Nokia Search is. They should tear apart the device search and the web search, to make the web part faster. (But I still love the device search feature).

EDIT: To demonstrate why the pre-loading of the browser in the Google app is awesome, here’s two videos with a larger search string:

Rumors with Google Search, 18 seconds

Rumors with Browser, 31 seconds

The difference is that when you open the browser it stops to connect, the “Connecting via internets” dialog you see. In the Google app it connects on the background, definitely speeding up the process.