(Credit:
Google)
Google has slowly been adding its location feature to Google's mobile applications. Last week, Windows Mobile phones were the latest to get the handy localization feature.
In Google's mobile maps apps, My Location appears as a blinking blue dot that shows either your approximate location, based on cell tower triangulation, or a more precise reading based on your phone's built-in GPS. The same principle now applies to search in the Google Mobile App. The blue dot will list your current location below the search box. Instead of specifying a city or zip code, you just type in your query, and Google will deliver the results closest to you.
The most recent version of Google Mobile App for Windows phones also weaves URL suggestions for Web pages into its search suggestions. By clicking one, you can bypass the search results page and go straight to the business' Web site. Furthermore, if you have Google Maps installed on your phone, the app can plot local search results on a map. Google signifies these locations in the search results with a red pin (pictured).
As a nod to those with privacy concerns, Google encrypts your location on its way to the server, and only stores the most recent location to make subsequent searching easier. Of course, not everyone wants to make their location known. You can disable the My Location feature in the settings under Advanced Options.
For those who use Google Mobile App to quickly find places nearby, this update does, indeed, make the app a more capable tool. It also steps into Yelp's mobile territory, delivering not only ratings as part of a search result, but also mapped locations. Combined with the map's directions feature, the mobile app could help drivers and passengers, especially, find their destinations faster.
Google Mobile App first became available for Windows Mobile phones in February 2009. To get the latest update, point the mobile browser to m.google.com.
Article updated 6/5/09 at 8:05am PSTwith more information about countries of availability.
(Credit:
Google)
Nokia S60 users can finally bypass the browser and start Google searches from the same application that most other smartphone users have been using for months. The free Google Mobile App has arrived on Nokia S60 phones.
As with CNET Editors' Choice winner Google Mobile App on BlackBerry, this Symbian build places a search bar at its heart. The search bar supports search suggestions, history, and edits to the history, all of which saves you typing on subsequent searches for similar topics. Submitted searches return results in the default browser.
The search bar is flanked on the top by icons for Gmail, Google Maps for Mobile, YouTube, and Picasa Web albums. Clicking either of the first three will launch each separate native app if you've got it installed, or will install it for the first time if you don't have it. A 'more" button fast tracks you to online versions of Goog 411, Google Reader, Google SMS, and Orkut.
The final feature in this approachable and endlessly useful app is the My Location feature that uses the phone's GPS or cell tower triangulation to guess your general neighborhood. With it activated, Google can automatically localize your searches, which takes typing your city or zip code off your hands.
You can launch Google Mobile App from Nokia's Today screen by pressing the phone's "back" key. Users can opt out by disabling the quick launch hot key in the app's Setting menu.
Get Google Mobile App for Nokia S60 by visiting m.google.com from your mobile browser, or mobile.google.com from a desktop. It is available for handsets used in Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Finland, Hong Kong, Macao, Norway, Portugal, Taiwan, and Sweden.
Google's Mobile App for BlackBerry picks up two new features in version 3.3 that are all but guaranteed to make your search results more reliable. Also, see what the voice search app has in store for our British friends over the pond. Check it out in this First Look video.
Thankfully, recent developments in mobile search applications have given us a handful of sturdy options when it comes to launching search from a Windows Mobile phone. Last month, Microsoft released a credible update to Live Search for Windows Mobile. This month it's Google's turn with Google Mobile App for Window Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs.
Although Google has a precedent of mobile search applications established for BlackBerry and iPhone, Google's mobile division has tailored this iteration of its Mobile App to the logic of Windows Mobile's Home Screen, to good benefit. See for yourself in this First Look video.
(Credit:
Google)
Windows Mobile owners tired of opening their browsers every time they want to start a Google search can now put that habit to rest. On Wednesday, Google released a version of Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile phones (rate it here).
On Microsoft's mobile platform, the free, native application installs a home screen plug-in from which you can launch a handful of Google's mobile services. About two thirds of Google Mobile App is dedicated to its search field. The other portion is populated with thumbnail icons that open your Gmail, Picasa Web albums, Google Docs, and so on, in your default browser, except the Google Maps icon, which will open or install Google's downloadable map and directions application on your phone.
While Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile surfaces your history and search suggestions just like the BlackBerry and iPhone versions, the Windows Mobile version is the first not be a full-screen application. Even when you open Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile from the program menu, you'll see it as a strip floating at the top of the screen.
Treating the mobile app as a horizontal swatch is actually an asset, thanks to some time-saving tweaks Google added to this version--like mapping the app to a hot key so you can start a search without having to first open an app from the program list, and searching within a specific domain. These make Google's mobile application a quick-acting reference resource for anyone with a Windows Mobile phone.
Google Mobile App will work on Windows Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
If you missed last week's news about Google's feature-honing update for its native BlackBerry app, here's your chance to see it in action.
As part of a few well-appointed changes, the new Google Mobile App for BlackBerry does away with its predecessor's penchant for hogging space on the home screen and has rearranged its resources to pack a greater wallop with search. Tune into the video to see what we mean.
The new BlackBerry app replaces the ungainly Google Mobile Updater and smartens up search.
(Credit: Google)Current users of Google's Mobile App for BlackBerry will receive an unexpected benefit when upgrading to the latest update to the mobile app: a cleaner home screen.
Announced on Wednesday, the new Google Mobile App for BlackBerry replaces the Mobile Updater package before it, a hub for downloading and updating Google's native BlackBerry apps for news, search, e-mail, and photos that permanently lived on the home screen, along with the separate applications it downloaded and quietly managed.
The new application does away with the extraneous hub by folding its capability to download and update Gmail, Picasa, and so on into a new search app. The result is an application anchored by a search bar that marches a string of icons along the top for downloading or launching BlackBerry-specific apps or mobile Web sites for the panoply of Google apps.
The application's sharper interface and shrunken home-screen footprint are welcome, as is the new and easy way to scroll through search history and repeat it with a click, or to edit a misspelled search term without having to retype it. Google's new mobile app also offers to autocomplete your search queries. It is disappointing, however, that most of the Google apps remain Web-based and have not merited a native application of their own. Gmail, Maps, and Sync, which syncs Google Calendar to the BlackBerry, are each represented by a native download, but clicking Reader, News, and Picasa photos from the new interface launches the appropriate page in the BlackBerry browser.
While the Web-based method does indeed whittle down home-screen clutter and save Google engineers a heap of maintenance work on a software download for each Web app, it also puts users at the disadvantage of getting their news in BlackBerry's bare-bones browser with its questionable readability. I'd personally rather spare my eyes than a pocketful of memory, and am therefore less likely to use the quick access icons. Still, as the new app's more compact interface and smarter search and history push Google's BlackBerry app in the right direction, I'd recommend making the switch. Download Google Mobile App for BlackBerry by pointing your phone's browser to http://m.google.com.
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