Google announced yesterday that it is rolling out many upgrades for its search app for iOS devices like iPhones and iPads. It has planned to integrate its search engine more deeply with these new upgrades. The Google search option will now be available inside the iMessage app which will enable the users to search on Google directly and then share those results in their iMessage conversations.
With this new iMessage extension of Google, users can now easily search for something on Google’s search engine. They can type a query in the search box or just tap the button below the search box for a specific set of searches like nearby Restaurants, local weather, trending news or videos.
Google has specifically mentioned restaurant searches in its announcement bulletin yesterday as it is a common topic in iMessage conversations. Tapping on the “Nearby” option below the search bar will pull up business listings or places of interest near you, based on the current location of the device.
Each search result also carries a share option, which if tapped will add the result directly to an iMessage conversation as a card. Once a user clicks on the card, they will be taken to that particular search result.
Google has also introduced two new features to its search app for iOS platform to engage its search engine more deeply on Apple devices. One of those features is the new share sheet option. When a user shares a webpage from Safari with Google, it will now also display suggested contents based on your current search query. This new feature was launched last year but turned out to be a failure because of a pop-up function that annoyed users, every time they typed a new query on the Google app.
The second new feature is the new drag and drop support on iPad. This feature can be used to move texts, images, and links to and from the Google app. A user can also share articles from Google directly to iMessage or save them into notes for reading later.