Venerable Internet search giant Google is giving its iOS search app a big speed boost today.
“Starting today,” Google announced on its blog Thursday, “when you use the Google Search app on your iPhone, you’ll see a completely redesigned interface that gives you faster results, beautiful full-screen image search, and a simple way to access all your Google apps in one place.”
The company asserts that autocompletion of search suggestions is significantly faster in this latest version of the app, bringing users search predictions instantly with each letter typed.
You’ll also notice that pages load faster, and checking out multiple pages is easy with the slide-in panel. Quickly swipe back and forth between webpages and your search results, and swap between search modes like Images and Places with a swipeable menu. Finding text within a webpage is a snap as well; just try tapping the magnifying glass on the bottom menu option on any page.
For Google, this latest app refresh underscores just how important mobile remains to the company’s long-term business and revenue strategies.
“The majority of the money Google makes right now on the mobile side is from online search and a good chunk of that still comes from the iPhone,” John Jackson, vice president of research at CCS Insight tells Wired. “Android has not been a significant money maker for Google, either directly or indirectly. While Android is a platform, for Google, AdWords is still the platform because Google has not been able to monetize Android in a way that is satisfactory.”