Google new applications for iPhone

Traditionally, switching between applications on a mobile device is slow, but what you'll see here is that we've made it blazingly fast," Gummi Hafsteinsson, product manager with Google's mobile development team, told InternetNews.com. Hafsteinsson noted that Google was able to take advantage of the same browser technologies supported by Apple's Safari's browser, such as Ajax, that it's used in the desktop versions of GMail and Google Maps.

Traditionally, switching between applications on a mobile device is slow, but what you'll see here is that we've made it blazingly fast," Gummi Hafsteinsson, product manager with Google's mobile development team, told InternetNews.com. Hafsteinsson noted that Google was able to take advantage of the same browser technologies supported by Apple's Safari's browser, such as Ajax, that it's used in the desktop versions of GMail and Google Maps. We've done a lot to pre-fetch and predict what users will do next so if you want to jump from one application to the other, you can do it instantly," he said. While Wednesday's announcement concerned the iPhone, Hafsteinsson said it's really part of Google's push to develop easier access to software across mobile platforms including the forthcoming Android-powered devices. Google software engineer Steve Kanefsky said in a blog post that "fast and fluid" was the design principle behind the release: "I wanted Web results as well as image, local, and news results without having to repeat my search. I wanted to check Gmail and my news feeds in Google Reader without having to load a new page every time. I also wanted Google Suggest to save me time typing queries on the virtual keyboard." With the new software, Google makes an intelligent guess as to what you're looking for after you type a few characters so you can then select the term and save yourself the hassle of typing in the rest of word.