Topic: IPhone

From Novelty To Foundational Product: The Evolution Of Google Maps

Until Android came along Google’s most important product after search undoubtedly was Google Maps. I know it sounds heretical to say this but in some ways Maps is more strategic to Google than search today. That’s because Google Maps bridge the physical and digital worlds and because Maps are more “useful” to mobile users than […]

Aruba Networks Enables “Blue-Dot” Indoor Navigation With Beacons

WiFi provider Aruba Networks used to offer retailers and others “blue-dot” indoor navigation using WiFi triangulation. However Apple’s recent decision in iOS 8 to randomize the iPhone’s MAC address changed all that — and may have effectively killed WiFi as an indoor location technology. Beyond this, WiFi is expensive and requires significant IT involvement. Beacons […]

Bing Adds New Crawlers To Support Non-Responsive Mobile Designs

Bing announced a new set of mobile crawlers with Bingbot Mobile User Agents to better support and recognize mobile websites that are not responsively designed. Lee Xiong from the Bing Crawl team explained Bing has designed these new crawlers to “probe websites with a number of new crawlers with the aim to give us the best […]

Like Google, Apple’s Siri Also Gets Stephen Colbert’s Height Wrong

Google came under fire last night from Stephen Colbert, over a direct answer that got the comedian’s height wrong. But Apple’s Siri makes the same mistake — something Colbert didn’t raise during his video appearance at the Apple’s iPad event today. Stephen Colbert Demands Google Apology For Getting His Height Wrong on our Marketing Land […]

Teens Embrace Voice Search, Many Adults Feel “Like Geeks” Using It

According to a voice search study commissioned by Google, the most smartphone-obsessed teens are using voice search every day. However many adults feel self-conscious or embarrassed when they talk to their smartphones. The study found that 45 percent of US adults said they felt “like a geek” talking to their phones. (Yet this is what […]

SearchCap: Google AdWords Automatic Item Updates, Google Smartphone Icons & More

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Introduces Automatic Item Updates For PLAs Up to now, Google has systematically disapproved product listing ads when retailers had price or inventory variances between their product feed and the microdata […]

Google Testing Smartphone Friendly Icon In Search Results, Again

Google is once again showing mobile smartphone icons on smartphone friendly search results, while searching on your smartphone. Many searchers are noticing it and Brent Payne sent us a screen shot. Here is what the smartphone icon looks like on an iPhone using Chrome: This is what I see on my iPhone for the same […]

MapQuest’s New Commute App Helps Optimize Drive Times

MapQuest has introduced a new app for Google Play and iOS: “Commute.” Just as the name suggests, it’s a stand-alone app intended to help drivers manage and optimize their daily driving to and from work. Commute is the third stand-alone mobile app produced by MapQuest. The others are a gas prices app and a travel […]

Samsung Vs. Apple In PLAs: Advertisers Spent 3X More On IPhone Ads Than Galaxy In Q2

Mobile device advertisers spent $26.4 million on Google product listing ads in Q2, according to new data from AdGooroo, which looked at 339 mobile device-related keywords. Apple iPhone-related keywords accounted for 45 percent of total spend on PLAs and dwarfed spend on Samsung Galaxy-related keywords. Among the 327 advertisers found running Google PLAs on the […]

Bing Rolls Out New Updates For Its iPhone App

Bing has released new updates for its iPhone app, adding a Bing Translator button, as well as including Bing’s image of the day and trending stories to the Today screen. [blockquote cite=”Bing Search Blog”]With this release, we were able to take advantage of the extensibility possible in iOS8 making it easier to extend the reach […]

Cortana Coming To Windows 9, Will It Replace Bing?

Next week in San Francisco, Microsoft will unveil Windows 9 for the press. Among the features of the new OS is reportedly going to be the virtual assistant Cortana. A range of sites are repeating some early evidence found by a German site, and also a discussion on Neowin, that assert Cortana will be a central feature […]

Google Maps Navigation Now Covers 104 Countries

Android Police points out that Google has expanded navigation for Google Maps to 20 additional countries. These are mostly in Africa, the Caribbean islands and South America.  From Algeria to Venezuela, the addition of these 20 brings to an impressive 104 the total number of countries where Google Maps offer navigation services. Google Maps is the fifth most […]

In-App Search: Great Idea, Not So Great Experience

Google, Facebook and others are trying to bring the world of internet-style “deep linking” to apps. Google is indexing in-app links from Android in a bid to keep search relevant in a mobile world now dominated by apps. Facebook recently touted gains that its open-source App Link program has made. Now an independent search app […]

SEO

Introducing The New Search Engine Land!

Notice anything different today? I sure hope so, because we’ve just launched the new Search Engine Land website! This is Search Engine Land’s first redesign since March, 2011. Our sister site, Marketing Land, has also been relaunched. While both sites obviously look different (more on that below), let me begin by talking about what hasn’t […]

Bing Mobile Domain Returns Service Unavailable 503 Error

If you try to access Bing Mobile at m.bing.com, you will be presented with an error message. The error will read: The page you want isn’t available We’re working to restore service as soon as possible. The server error code also returns a major error, specifically a 503 error code which means the service is […]

Google Mobile Testing Search Results Snippet Descriptions

Google is testing showing site and search results description snippets in the mobile search results interface. Google launched site description overlays in the desktop results earlier this year and now it appears to be coming to mobile results. I personally cannot replicate it but @northeasternext shared several screen shots with me to show this in […]

Cortana Expands To Other Markets, Becomes “Xiao Na” In China

There’s increasing evidence that Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana is being positioned as a key differentiator vs. Android and iPhones. A new TV commercial (below) purports to compare Cortana to Siri, with a mock Siri voice saying “I can’t do that” a number of times. This morning Microsoft announced new geographies and new features for Cortana […]

SearchCap: Google Quality Raters, International Targeting & AdWords + Google My Business

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Now Link Google My Business And AdWords, Get Account-Level Location ExtensionsGoogle is introducing the ability to set up location extensions at the account level by linking your Google My Business account […]

Google Making Maps App More Competitive With Yelp

Google Maps has updated its app for iPhone and iPad. The new version adds features and content and even makes the app more visually appealing. The new version includes the following improvements: Search results appear with descriptions on the map Easy switching between map and list view of results Reservations via Gmail indicated on map […]

SearchCap: Google AdWords Removes Delete, Right To Be Forgotten Confusion & July 4th

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Semantics: Google AdWords To Replace “Delete” With “Remove” In Most Instances It’s always seemed odd that choosing to “Delete” a campaign, for example, in AdWords doesn’t actually mean the campaign will […]

Amazon Fire Phone: Bing For Search, Nokia For Maps

The emerging consensus from the early “hands on” or “first look” reviews is that the Amazon Fire Phone has some novel and interesting features but that it doesn’t measure up, overall, to the iPhone or “true Android” devices. I’ve argued that Amazon missed the boat with its high-end pricing. Interestingly, there has been almost no […]

At Five Years Old, Bing Has Come Far Yet Has More To Grow

Microsoft’s Bing search engine has turned five this week. There are good reasons for some birthday celebrations at Microsoft. The company has created a solid competitor to Google, grown its market share and created a search platform for other Microsoft products. But when it comes to mindshare, Bing is still far behind rivaling Google as […]

SearchCap: Google SEO Myths & Yahoo Default Search On iPhone

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Why Yahoo’s Not Going To Steal The Search Default For iPhone Away From Google Apparently, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants to be the default search for Apple’s Safari browser on iPhone […]