Instant Previews now available on mobile

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 | 8:47 AM

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see.

For example, if you’re looking for a webpage that has both photos and descriptions, you can use Instant Previews to quickly identify these pages by navigating across the visual search results with a few swipes of your finger. Or perhaps you’re looking for an article, a step-by-step instructions list, or a product comparison chart—with Instant Previews, you can easily spot pages with the right content without having to navigate back and forth between websites and search results. And when the mobile version of a website is available, we’ll show you a preview of the mobile page.





To use Instant Previews on your mobile device, do a search on www.google.com and tap on the magnifying glass next to any search result. A side-by-side comparison view of the webpage previews for the first page of search results will appear. When you find a result you like, tap on the preview to go straight to the website. It’s as easy as finding a recipe for poaching an egg:




You can learn more about Instant Previews for mobile in our Help Center. We hope that you enjoy finding the right result faster with Instant Previews!

25 comments:

Unknown said...

Is this the final version or is it still in progress? Looked like it had lag when surfing the previews. Nice add, it comes really handy!

etnu said...

Doesn't appear to work on tablets. Switching the user agent to mobile or desktop works though.

Unknown said...

What if you want to navigate using the normal search results, not the previews? Every time you want a preview you have to hit the preview button and then hit the back button to go back to the results - and it always goes back to the first result, even if the preview was for the last one on the results page, which becomes a right pain!

Peter said...

Does not seem to work on my HTC Desire HD with 2.2.1

Ahmed Eltawil said...

Works beautifully and flawlessly on my Nexus One. Keep up the great work and keep the innovations coming!

Unknown said...

It works quiet nicely on my HTC Desire, great improvement. Although I haven't been able to scroll through the previews by swiping, I had to tap the little arrow, which is far less cool. Is this a gingerbread-only feature?

Chris said...

Wow, I'd love the option for the Android Voice Search to immediately go to the Fast Flip preview images.

Unknown said...

Ditto on the scroll issue: I can't swipe through the preview, need to use the < and > arrows. (EVO 4G w/Froyo)

Admin said...

It's available for nokia mobile?

honeybee said...

I believe Google is spoiling us but I love it .... it works great on my nexus 1

Deen said...

wow man this makes a lot of sense

www.total-privacy.ie.tc

Unknown said...

Just tried it, works great. Thanks Google for continuing to be a leader in web and mobile device innovation.

Diego Salatino said...

Anda excelente en iPhone, felicitaciones

Unknown said...

have any estimate for blackberry ?

Unknown said...

It is not showing up for me on stock android browser, but works on Dolphin browser. Any idea how to get it to work? Thanks HTC evo

I Putu Sudarma said...

so this is for android ?

Chris said...

I guess I'm going to have to keep asking this every time you post "for iOS and Android". Blackberry 6.0 uses the SAME webkit-based browser as these platforms. It's fully HTML5 compliant. Why won't this work on Blackberry? Are you purposefully filtering User Agent strings?

Unknown said...

The scroll function doesn't work (HTC Desire HD). Only the < and > arrows works.

administrator said...

reat improvement. Although I haven't been able to scroll through the previews by swiping

Unknown said...

Works fine on my HTC gratia. However I miss an ability to add a found location to an existing contact. As it is now I can only add the location to a new contact.

Unknown said...

Google through us blackberry users a bone here, at least give us a special URL to use to give us access to the iOS and android version of things or even better just add us to the user agent strings. This is really getting beyond a joke now, and it seems to me that your trying to promote your own mobile OS by purposefully restricting mobile versions of your website.

- A blackberry and google lover

Varunkumar Nagarajan said...

Thanks for this feature. This looks much better than the web version of it. Btw, I am interested in knowing the insights into the technology being used. Could you please make a post similar to http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/11/instant-previews-under-hood.html

Thanks,
Varun

Tom H said...

I want the "starred results" star icon back. Anyone know how I can do that? I'm on Android 2.2. Thanks.

sourcingzone said...

nice feature

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R. C. Fountain said...

Next time I need to poach an egg, I know where to go. ;) Seriously, sweet features. Thanks for sharing.