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Quick Search Box for Android integrates phone and web searching on your phone

Categories: Android, Applications
By: , IntoMobile
Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:19 AM

Quick Search Box for Android

Google has unveiled the Quick Search Box (QSB) for Android, which they say brings a “fast and versatile new system-wide search experience.” Available right from your phone’s home screen, QSB provides suggestions as you type, making searching faster. A few characters is usually all what it takes to search not only for your phone’s contents (apps, contacts, and browser history), but also the web (local business listings, stock quotes, weather, flight status, etc.) — all without opening the browser. QSB even learns from your habits pushing the more used search results higher on the suggestions list.

But wait, there’s more. Near the search field, you’ll also see a microphone icon. Click on it and say what you want to find. You can also say “Call Dusan Belic” and the application will figure out what to do — actually that’s in case you’re speaking English, as QSB doesn’t support other languages at the moment.

Finally, and this is why Google is such a lovable company – QSB allows third party apps to include suggestions in the list. As a result, you may also find the content you want from other apps in the results. In that sense, QSB-enabled apps should soon hit the Android Market, we’ve no doubts about it. That’s for Android 1.6-powered devices, only… And for some demo video, after the jump. Enjoy! ;)

[Via: Google Mobile Blog]

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About The Author

Dusan Belic

Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.

  • James McP

    Yay, android copies the Palm Pre! No seriously, it’s a good thing to copy useful features from other machines. I love the Pre’s ability to type a letter or two and get apps, documents, etc from the launcher. Apps can have keywords that help you find them (“audio” pulls up Music and the Ringtones apps). The voice recognition is a nice improvement, although I bet it’s just a port of the defunct Google Voice Search or Goog411. The surprising thing is that Google didn’t have this earlier in the Android.