Android users already get to see relevant content from the apps that they have installed on their devices when they conduct a search on Google, this feature has been limited to Google’s own mobile platform for over two years now and finally it’s being provided to iOS users. Google Search will now return relevant content from iOS apps that users have installed on their iPhones and iPads.
Just last month Google also started displaying content in search results from Android apps that users didn’t have installed on their devices, and it will now start doing this for iOS users as well.
This feature brings a whole new way for iOS users to discover apps that they can install on their devices, app that they can easily come across because they’ll show up directly in search results on Google.
Since iOS is not Google’s platform it has to work with certain limitations, for example it can’t exactly find out which apps the user has installed on their iOS device. Instead Google will work with developers to make this feature work as seamlessly as possible.
Developers who would like their apps to surface content in search results will have to enable deep linking support, provide deep link annotations on their website, ensure that it’s possible to go back to Search results with just one tap and also tell Google that they would like for their app to be included in this feature.
When all this is done, end users will simply see relevant results from apps that they have installed, and even those that they don’t have installed on their devices.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Google, Google Search and iOS.