Nokia may have pointed a gun to Symbian’s head and forced the aging operating system to commence a 2 year death march, but that hasn’t stopped the engineers at the Finnish handset maker to try and come up with innovative new features. These days most people begin their web browsing experience with a query typed into a text box, in other words: Google. Looking to mimic that familiar search interface, Nokia Universal Search was born. It’s a homescreen widget that when clicked will let you start typing in whatever it is you happen to be looking for, and it’ll comb through all the content on your device, local listings from Ovi Maps, and applications in the Ovi Store. It’ll also keep a dynamically updated list of your top four applications and contacts so you can get to them with just one click. Watch the video below to get a better idea of what we’re talking about:
Now while this application is interesting, there’s something to be said about how people access information on their mobile phones versus their desktop browser. On your phone you’re likely to have dozens of applications that each have their own respective search engine. One for movies, one for restaurants, one that acts as your dictionary, you get the picture. On your computer you just point your browser to Google and start hitting the keys. See the difference? Microsoft understands this and with Windows Phone they’re trying to get developers to tie into the built in Bing search engine so that a user’s query can access the content that applications would otherwise horde for themselves. Time will tell if it catchs on, because most developers want you to use their app, not someone else’s. Why? So they can show you more ads or sell you some bullshit enhancement via an in-app purchase.
But back to Nokia Universal Search … meh.