Mobile smartphones and tablets are the future of computing and lot of companies understand that very well. One of the most important things that make a smartphone successful is the number of apps that are available for that particular platform. Most of the major platforms like iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 all have dedicated app stores where users can download apps for their platforms.
However, it looks like several people are also searching for those mobile apps using Google. An indication of this is a dedicated section in Google search where users can search for "Applications" as seen in the screenshot above.
The new section available in the LHS menu allows users to search for applications in various app stores. However, the list of app stores/websites seem to be limited to Apple and Google for now. For example, my search for "rowi" the popular Twitter app for Windows Phone did not yield any results from Windows Phone marketplace, however, a search for everything listed it as the second result.
The Applications search is not just limited to mobile phones though and can also be used to search for Google Chrome extension and apps, Firefox add-ons, Windows applications, Mac OS X software and more. A dedicated option for Applications is definitely good because and will allow users to quickly find download links to their applications.
I am not sure if the Applications search is new or old, but it was probably the first time I have personally seen it. Have you seen the Applications search before? Do you find it useful while looking to download apps?
