Google releases new Gesture Search app

New feature lets you search your Android phone with touch screen simple gestures

If you own a phone running Android 2.0, definitely check out this new utility Google has just released.  The feature allows users to search with written gestures on their screens.

So how does it work?  Pretty much as easy as it sounds.  You load up the Gesture Search application and then begin drawing letter on your screen of what you're searching for throughout your phone.  Google gave a run through on its blog,

Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn't all that neat, that's okay. If the "A" you draw looks a bit like an "H", as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, "H" results will be brought up as well. If needed, you can also erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.

This new feature isn't built into the Android operating system.  In order to get it up and running users will have to search for 'Gesture Search' in the Android Market, which you can find now.  

Before Gesture Search, users had the choice to search by typing or search by voice.  As we all know, sometimes it simply isn't appropriate to search outloud in a quiet place like a library, and sometimes you just don't have enough freedom to try and type on a touch screen phone (like while driving).  This feature is a great work around and definitely worth a try.  

I don't have this feature on my iPhone yet but see how it could definitely come in handy, although who knows if we'll ever see it with Apple suing Android phone developers like HTC for patent infringement.