When Google
launched "Instant" for the desktop in September, the company promised a mobile version of the turbo-charged search offering would follow later in the fall. Google made good on that assurance Thursday
with the beta release of Instant for mobile phones starting with most iPhone and Android devices in the U.S.
The benefits of Google Instant on mobile phones, with smaller keypads (physical or
virtual) and slower load times when trying to find information quickly, are not hard to see. As with the PC-based version, you'll see predictions of what you might be looking for as soon as you start
to enter a search term. "If you type [anse], for example, you should see [ansel adams] along with other predictions," noted Google in a blog post announcing the mobile extension of Instant.
Results for the first prediction appear automatically, and tapping on the other predictions will display more results. Pressing the enter key or the search button skips the suggested results and
displays only those for exactly what you have typed.
To start, go to google.com in your phone's browser and tap the Google Instant "Turn on" link beneath the search box. Google suggests that if
you don't see that link, wait a moment before refreshing the page.
The company said the improvement in search speed is tied to a new AJAX and HTML5 implementation for mobile that dynamically
updates the page with new results and eliminates the need to load a new page for each query. Google Instant for mobile works best on 3G and Wi-Fi networks, but a user can easily turn it off or on
depending on the quality of a wireless network connection.
Google Instant is currently available for Android 2.2 ("Froyo") devices and iPhones and iPods running iOS 4 in the U.S. in English.
Google is working on extending the service to more countries and devices in the coming months. Read more and see a demo here.