Google adds location-aware search for mobiles

Jake Widman
Tuesday, 12 January 2010 01:11

Your IT - Mobility

U.S. iPhone and Android-based device users can access Google.com information tailored to their phones' reported locations.

In a post on the Google Mobile Blog, two Google engineers described the new "Near me now" feature in mobile searching.

To access the feature, users first have to enable their phone's location feature.

Once that's done, a "Near me now" link appears on the Google search page. Clicking on that link brings up a list of categories and an "Explore right here" option.

If the phone's location information is accurate enough, "Explore right here" will bring up information about the immediate vicinity, such as reviews of the restaurant the user is standing in front of.

Otherwise, clicking on the categories will bring up a list of restaurants, bars, banks, or other frequently sought destinations near the phone.

The new feature works on iPhones with OS 3.x and on Android devices with version 2.0.1 or later of that OS.

The blog also says the feature only works in the U.S., but a commenter claims to have got it working in England. The same person also says says that if your browser can be set to identify itself as an iPhone (for example, by using Firefox User Agent Switcher), the feature also works on a PC.