Google has recently introduced a new innovative feature for all Android phones in the U.S. which are running the Android 2.0 or higher software. Google Gesture Search allows you to quickly find an installed application, a bookmark, a music or movie track, or a contact simply by making a "gesture" on the Android touch screen.
Let's say you wanted to call your friend Veronica on your cell phone. All you would need to do is make a large "V" gesture on your Android screen and your phone will quickly bring up Veronica's phone number, which you can then select to call her. If you have a lot of "V" contacts like Vance, Vanessa, or Val, you can also gesture an "E" to narrow down your search. To erase you search and start over, you can simply swipe the screen from left to right. To erase only one letter, you can swipe the screen from right to left.
So why should you care about this feature? It actually provides a few benefits that the other search features can't match.
1. Typing is slow and cumbersome
One of the few complaints about touch screen cell phones is that typing on the virtual keyboard is tough and leads to lots of mistakes. Rather than pulling up the keyboard and typing in V-E-R-O-N-I-C-A, you can simply swipe a big "V" on your home screen.
2. Voice Search is too loud
Google Voice Search has been around awhile and has been a good alternative for people who wanted a different way to search besides the virtual keyboard. Unfortunately, it isn't always appropriate to use this feature. If you are in a quiet place, or you don't want other people to think you are nuts because you keep saying words at your cell phone, then Gesture Search is a good alternative.
3. Your handwriting doesn't have to be perfect
If Google thinks that your "V" looks more like a "U", it'll bring up results for both "U" and "V". For people who don't have the best handwriting, this is a great feature.
4. It will learn your favorites
In our example above, it was mentioned that you could gesture a "V", then an "E", to bring up Veronica's contact information. If Veronica is your best friend, Google will soon realize that when you swipe a "V" (or even a "U"), you are probably looking for Veronica. Google will return that as the #1 result.
5. It's free
It's hard to find a better benefit than this. Even if you decide that Gesture Search isn't for you, there is no cost to try it out.
It seems like every day Google comes out with a brand new feature for its search engine or for its Android operating system. Even though Gesture Search may not exactly be a groundbreaking piece of technology, it is nice to see yet another free offering from Google.
