SearchMe Is Coming To The iPhone (Naturally)
We once asked if Apple’s CoverFlow is a better interface for image search than the typical thumbnail grid approach. But what about for mobile search? SearchMe thinks it is good for both.
The visual search engine that launched last March is working on a natural extension: a visual search app for the iPhone. The app is ready, but the company is still waiting for it to be approved by Apple for the iTunes App Store. Co-Founder John Holland showed me a functioning version of the app earlier this week at TechCrunch50.
SearchMe isn’t a perfect solution. It presents search results as a series of thumbnails showing each Webpage, but you have to flip through them sequentially. SearchMe does let you narrow results by clicking on a topic icon. Still, it lends itself to certain types of searches better than others—when you are grazing for information, rather than looking for something specific.
The CoverFlow-like interface sometimes sometimes gets in the way. But sometimes it lets you find exactly what you want by letting you preview each age before clicking on it. I kind of wish it was an interface option on a regular search engine that I could turn on or off depending on what type of search I am doing. But on mobile devices, search is broken. So I’m more willing to try new things.