Search

Twitter refreshes its terrible iPhone app with revamped search, tweaks

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 6, 2013

The popular micro-blogging platform Twitter today announced a freshly redesigned search experience for its iOS/Android apps and the Twitter.com web interface. This helps you find relevant tweets, trends and people to follow in a single stream. Plus, the reorganized search is now available anywhere in the mobile apps via a new icon.

You can see your five most recent searches, tap them to redo the search and clear your recent search history. Twitter says the updated iOS client launches faster, especially on older iDevices. It's a nice, albeit way overdue refresh. If you're using Twitter's official client, you can update your devices now. I'm sticking with Tweetbot...

Facebook to take on Google with new search tool

Cody Lee ∙ January 15, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSji6Y66aKo

Facebook has just kicked off its highly anticipated "come and see what we’re building" event, and it's first big announcement of the day is its new search tool. It's not necessarily a web search per se, but a graph search, capable of crawling all of Facebook's data.

It will help you answer questions like: what are some things my friends like, what kind of music are they listening to, what about places my friends have been to or liked and much more more. We have more details on Facebook's new search tool after the fold...

Microsoft rolls out Bing social sidebar on iPads

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Microsoft recently overhauled its Bing search engine around a new social bar to let desktop users "find people who are relevant to your search based on what they’ve shared, publically blogged or tweeted about".

Friday, the Bing team announced that the feature is now available on the iPad and iPad mini via browser support for iOS Safari. The new UI adapts to landscape or portrait orientation automatically, with the social bar on the right.

If you're a big Bing fan, this addition makes it easy to learn what your friends shared on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Klout related to what you’re searching for...

The iPhone 5 is the top searched gadget of 2012 on Yahoo and Bing

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 24, 2016

Samsung reigns supreme in handsets, but Apple's iPhone continues to pique consumer interest like no other gadget. The easiest way to figure out what consumers want is to comb through logs of major web search properties. Yahoo is out today with their annual top searches and the results are hardly surprising.

The iPhone 5 was the top searched for gadget in 2012: it's managed to beat Kim Kardashian for the most searched for term overall in 2012. Matter of fact, three of Apple's gadgets landed at the top of Yahoo's year in review list. Looking beyond units sold, it's clear where the public’s heart lies...

5 excellent jailbreak tweaks to improve search on iOS

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Searching is something we do day in and day out. It's an integral part of the desktop experience, so it only makes sense that it's something we do often on mobile devices as well.

Searching on the iPhone, while adequate, has always left a little something to be desired when compared to competing operating systems like Android. It only makes sense, considering Android is the product of Google — the creator of the world's best and most popular search engine.

If you're jailbroken, however, you have many more choices when it comes to search on iOS. There are search improvements for Spotlight, voice search enhancements, Notification Center search options, and much, much, more. Jailbreaking is a great way to get more out of your device, and that's why we've taken the liberty to compile a list highlighting some of the best jailbreak tweaks for search...

How to add Facebook, Twitter, and more search options to Spotlight

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

The awkwardly named SLightEnhancerSearch, is a recently released jailbreak tweak that adds a ton of new search options to the stock Spotlight search on iOS. When it was first released, I ran into many issues with the tweak, namely, the search options not showing up on the Spotlight page when enabled.

The tweak was updated today, and the developer seems to have stamped out all of the bugs that plagued the initial release. SLightEnhancerSearch, as silly as its name may be, is a quality jailbreak tweak that many will no doubt find useful...

Showdown: Google Voice Search v. Siri speed test

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 13, 2016

http://vimeo.com/52497584

Google's recently updated Voice Search iOS app is simply amazing as it demonstrates just how speedy Siri should be. Unfortunately, Apple's digital secretary remains reliant on network connectivity for voice recognition. Heck, this time last year some folks were even convinced only the iPhone 4S was fast enough to run Siri. That couldn't be farther from the truth because Google's iOS app comes with real-time voice recognition. So, how speedy is Siri compared to Google's refreshed app? Check out this clip by Gizmodo and meet us down in the comments. It's a couple days old but definitely worth watching...

Google gives its iOS search app Siri-like voice magic

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 30, 2012

Google’s most advanced voice search has arrived on iOS! The company yesterday issued an update to its Voice search app for Android with new Google Now features for Android 4.1 devices. And today, the search Goliath has finally released a long-expected update to its iOS app. It brings a bit overdue iPhone 5 compatibility in addition to - and this is huge - the vastly improved voice search capability with artificial intelligence aspects akin to Google Now on Android Jelly Bean devices.

Give it a few more releases and this app is bound to compete with Apple's Siri. Also on tap are the usual bug fixes and a few other tweaks and enhancements. It's a free universal binary that supports all iOS form factors natively so make sure to update to the latest version. Jeff had a chance to take it for a spin, I've included his video hands-on right below...

Apple poaches a prominent Amazon search technologist to improve on Siri

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

According to a new report by AllThingsD, Apple has nabbed an Amazon search specialist William Stasior, who also held a senior position at AltaVista and Oracle. Stasior has reportedly landed the top job: Apple basically has charged him with running its Siri unit.

In hiring a new tutor for its underachieving digital secretary, Apple has indicated intentions to double down on enhancing Siri's skill set, per Tim Cook's promise a few months ago.

It also might signal a broader search agenda down the road that might give birth to an Apple-branded, more natural version of the traditional web search.

At any rate, the iPhone maker is interested in expanding Siri's scope, which in its current incarnation focuses on voice-activated artificial intelligence, leaving search queries to specialized search engines and data bases such as Wolfram Alpha.

This could change down the road, however, especially as Apple continues to lessen its reliance on Google technology for some software features of the iPhone...

Google redesigns mobile site with slide-out navigation bar, it’s pretty dope

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Google is rolling out a revamped mobile experience on smartphones as we speak. It's pretty slick as Google has finally adopted the design language used across its other web properties. The company really hit the ball out of the park in terms of design: the refreshed site features a black navigation bar which slides in and out of view smoothly, akin to the Facebook app.

Matter of fact, it almost feels like a native app. Knowing it's been ages since Google updated its Search app on the iPhone, the prettified mobile site will certainly better serve your needs. My favorite capability has to be the ability to navigate Google's most popular services with ease, all without losing track of content at hand...

Two months later, Apple still hasn’t approved Google Search update

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Back in August, Google showed off an update for its iOS Search app that included its new Google Now digital assistant technology. It's the same tech it uses in Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).

During the showing, the company said that it had submitted the update to Apple and was awaiting approval. But more than two months have passed now, and we haven't heard a peep...

Apple Maps to integrate Russian Yandex’s data in iOS 6, report says

Ed Sutherland ∙ September 17, 2012

Google's relationship with Apple may be on borrowed time. Apple Maps, set to appear soon in iOS 6, will reportedly use a local company's data Yandex to provide location-search details in Russia. A developer version of iOS 6 will send users to Yandex.Maps for further information regarding locations.

A search of Vladimir Lenin's Mausoleum, for instance, gets "more details on Yandex.Maps application or offers to download Yandex.Maps from App Store if the user doesn't have it installed," a Russian developer now using iOS 6 tells Bloomberg.