Soon You Will Install Android Apps Directly From Google Search

Google’s latest experiment lets you install Android apps on your favorite phone directly from your search results.

It’s pretty common to see Google tweaking their search pages. They’ve gotten better at extracting information from the pages you’re looking for, so you can Google it, search for “Bolivia’s capital city” for example, and instead of having to select a webpage, there will be a box. results are at the top of the window.

By the way, the capital is Sucre.

Now, the search giant seems to be struggling with integrating app installs as well. If you search for an app from your Android device, you may see a fine-tuned results page that takes advantage of some Play Store frameworks. An app install event from search results started a few weeks ago. AndroidPolicehowever, it seems that Google has decided to offer the feature to a wider audience.Unfortunately, you can’t just open Chrome and search for an app and wait for it to install. Instead, you’re limited to results available through the Google app – but this includes using the built-in search bar or the “OK, Google” voice command.

Normally when you Google search for an Android app, you’ll see a summary of the Play Store listing with an icon and an install button at the top of the page. Often times, clicking the install button just opens the Play Store to the list of that app.

But if your device has been updated with this new process, tapping the install button will open a Play Store box above your search results, just like when you click install from Google’s app store.

While it’s a neat integration and will only save you a few seconds each time you use it, those seconds add up. It’s unlikely that we’ll see Apple take steps to enable similar functionality in iOS, as it will confuse the Apple brand with Google’s search results – a split that doesn’t happen on Android.