Google launches experimental search tool for Macs

Venture Beat — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:26:44 -0800

Google started as a search company, and it still does work on that from time to time. Today, the company released a new Quick Search Box for Macs that aims “to make it just as easy to search outside your browser,” a post on the Google Mac Blog reads.

The app, which quickly installs on your machine and comes up anytime you double-click the command button is similar to the quick search box included in Google desktop. But as Google notes, it’s more similar to the Google Mobile App for the iPhone (minus the whole voice search thing). But this search box is more experimental, using search components like contextual search, actions, and extensibility.

I’ve tested it out and it seems to work fairly well — a bit faster than Apple’s own Spotlight search feature, but with results that aren’t nearly as robust from your computer. Still, Google’s search box includes web results, which people no doubt spend more time looking for than something on their computer.

You can also easily set it to search within specific areas easily via a drop down menu. For example, if you want to search Wikipedia articles or YouTube videos only from the box, you can do that.

Perhaps this is Google’s answer to Apple’s supposed “search engine,” but I still believe that, if anything, will be more of a search across various pieces of Apple hardware you own — like a computer and the iPhone.

You can find the Google Quick Search Box on its Google Code page.

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Google launches experimental search tool for Macs