Google isn’t about to lose out on all the potential search traffic they can get from people searching for Android and iPhone apps. The search giant has quietly enabled a new feature this week that will direct any iPhone OS- or Android OS-powered smartphone to a direct download link for a particular app. When searching for an app – say the Slacker Radio app – on an iPhone, Google will include a result that will automatically take you to the Slacker Radio AppStore page on your iPhone. If you’re on an Android phone, clicking the download link will kick you out to the Android Market.
The new mobile app search feature automatically detects which phone you’re using conduct your online query. And, rather than serve up direct download links to both the Android and iPhone version of an app, Google will only display a link to the app store most appropriate for your device. What you see at the top of this post is a Google search result for Shazam on the iPhone AppStore. Directly above is a screenshot from an Android phone (our Sprint HTC EVO 4G, for your information), showing a direct link to download Slacker Radio from the Android Market.
So, the next time you’re looking to download an app, you might want to fire up Google search and give ‘er a whirl. Hey, it’s probably even better than Android Market’s built-in search functionality.
[Via: iPodNN]