A couple of weeks back, I wrote a story about Google Instant and how it can be a game changer for the mobile search industry. The ‘Instant’ concept has picked up much faster in the iOS world much faster than what I imagined. Inspired by Google Instant, a 15-year-old whiz kid named Stephen Ou applied the same concept [...]
A couple of weeks back, I wrote a story about Google Instant and how it can be a game changer for the mobile search industry. The ‘Instant’ concept has picked up much faster in the iOS world much faster than what I imagined.
Inspired by Google Instant, a 15-year-old whiz kid named Stephen Ou applied the same concept to the iTunes Store to create a web application that delivers search results in an instant. The iTunes Store may be the leading music store worldwide but there’s still some work for Apple to do as far as the accuracy and speed of the search process is concerned. iTunes Instant may not be foolproof but it’s yet another example of the kind of enhancements that can be done to improve the overall user experience on the Apple App Store.
Predictive-search isn’t a new paradigm. In fact, it has been around for several years in the computer world. However, given the limited processing capabilities of cellphones, implementing predictive search has been a daunting task in the past. The iTunes public API are now far more powerful as compared to earlier and it took Ou less than three hours to build the iTunes Instant application. It works on the simple principle that provides suggestions for products from the iTunes store based on what the user enters in the main search bar.
Ou says that iTunes Instant “will make your life better” and I concur with him. It may not be as quick and as polished as Google Instant, but it’s definitely a giant step in the right direction. iTunes Instant has several notable limitations – Apps for the iPhone or iPad don’t appear in the search and it doesn’t list audiobooks as well. From what I’ve seen so far, iTunes Instant is reasonably accurate and pretty quick – a refreshing change from the slow and cluttered iTunes search experience.
If you haven’t tried iTunes Instant yet, you can access it here.
The developer also creates App Store Instant that lets user search iPhone or iPad Apps instantly. To try out App Store Instant, you can access it here.
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