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Google Gesture Search for Android

Niamh Lynch

Niamh Lynch

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Gesture Search is an application for Android phones that lets you search for things like songs, contacts and applications by starting to write the name of the item on your screen. Being from Google Labs, this app is seriously cool.

To make Gesture Search an even easier, more natural app to use, you can open  it by just Double Flipping your cell phone.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3ZYKIqj7A[/youtube]
Despite the video and animated demonstration in Gesture Search’s getting started guide, it took me a little while to master. In the end, I realized the key to the movement is keeping your device more or less upright – in other words, don’t hold it flat like you normally would.

Once the app is open, just begin to draw on the screen. At the moment it supports English (upper and lowercase and numbers) and you can write the characters in one movement or more – Gesture Search automatically realizes if you have finished. Once you write, a list of possibilities will appear. You can scroll down and tap as normal (Gesture Search can also detect the difference between scrolling and writing.). If you want to refine the search, just trace the second letter, and so on.

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If you make a mistake, draw a short line to the left. If you want to start over, trace a line to the right. The Gesture Search configuration settings are also pretty helpful. You can decide whether you want to include contacts, music, applications and browser bookmarks in your searches, or if you want to leave some out. You can also configure the sensitivity of the Double Flip function and your writing speed, which makes Gesture Search a lot more comfortable to use.

I thought Gesture Search was really cool, as well as being a pretty accurate search tool. Whether or not I’m going to use it on a regular basis – in other words, as my main search method – remains to be seen. Either way, I’m keeping this app, so if you happen to see me waving my cell around like a madwoman, don’t worry – I’ll just be perfecting my Double Flip. Try Gesture Search for yourself here.

Niamh Lynch

Niamh Lynch

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