There are people who have multiple home screens on their phones, each housing a mass of apps that all have subtle differences that make them incredibly important to have. The food lovers have Zomato, the shoppers have Dubizzle, late night hotel crashers live via Trivago and the list goes on. And then you have people who believe that Google search app is the only app necessary for them to function. Google agrees.
The California based company wants to spread its dominance over search to smartphones by taking the “downloading” part of using an app out of the equation. Google started indexing the content of apps two years ago, so that when people search on Google, they could find the best results whether they’re in an app or on the web. As a result Google now has over 100 billion deep links into apps in their index — including some popular apps like Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb or Pinterest — and 40% of searches people do on Android surface app content.
Because Google recognized that there’s a lot of great content that lives only in apps, they have started to show some “app-first” content in Search as well. For example, if you need a hotel for your spur-of-the-moment trip to Chicago, search results will now include results from the HotelTonight app. Or if you’re thinking about visiting Arches National Park, you will now find details about the 18-mile scenic drive from the Chimani app.
In addition, you’re also going to start seeing an option to “stream” some apps you don’t have installed, right from Google Search, provided you’re on good Wifi. For example, with one tap on a “Stream” button next to the HotelTonight app result, you’ll get a streamed version of the app, so that you can quickly and easily find what you need, and even complete a booking, just as if you were in the app itself. And if you like what you see you’ll be able to install it with a single tap. Google have brought this about by using a new cloud-based technology that they’re currently experimenting with.
However, there’s a catch: For now, Google can only do that with nine apps: Hotel Tonight, Weather, New York Subway, My Horoscope, Daily Horoscope, Visual Anatomy Free, Useful Knots, restaurant finder Gormey and national-parks guide Chimani.
The new app feature will initially be available on Android Google app and will eventually make its way to the iOS app.
Source: Google Blog
