Google is now listing apps in search results performed from mobile devices. This includes links to apps in both the Apple App Store and Google’s Android Market. The links also include basic information about the app including price, developer and ratings information. Once you click on a link, it will immediately send you to the respective page for the app in each store. It appears that Google is not playing favorites with this feature.
There do seem to be some problems with its current implementation however. As TUAW points out, it can be somewhat difficult to get the app links to appear depending on the specific keywords at play. In a widely used example, if you search for “Shazam,” you will not be provided the links, but if you are to type “download Shazam,” the links will be present. The situation gets even more difficult when you are searching for apps that do not use a unique name or have more popular counterparts. For example, searching for “Download Dropbox” does not yield and App Store link on iPhone, only a link Dropbox's desktop application download page.
Quirks aside, this is a nice new addition that should, in theory, give apps wider exposure through contextual searches. This feature is only available in the United States at the moment, but according to Google, it should be available on a larger scale in the near future.
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