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Android Will Now Store Google Searches Offline and Deliver Them When You Get Signal (theverge.com)
Google is rolling out an update for its Android app that makes it easier to search on the web with an inconsistent internet connection. Users can make searches when offline and the Google app will store them, delivering the results later (with an optional notification) when the devices get signal again. From a report: As Google product manager Shekhar Sharad writes in a blog post: "So the next time you lose service, feel free to queue up your searches, put your phone away and carry on with your day. The Google app will work behind-the-scenes to detect when a connection is available again and deliver your search results once completed."
I'm surprised it took Google this long to admit doing something like this.
Needs to turn Main Screen On and ask how I am doing.
When I search google its because I want it now. If I know I don't have a connection I won't bother searching.
There's plenty of people, like me, that take a commuter train to/from work or just around the metro area and those have dead zones they pass through, times of high load, etc. and I'll still like to have a search come back from me. What if I have it trying to search and it dies then? It would be nice for it to queue and return one that short blip is over, instead of me getting the error screen and having to go back and then search again.
Having a workable offline mode is what separates general-purpose computing from smart terminals. Useful operation despite having spotty connectivity, or none at all, is required of applications that're not just a native front-end to some gone-tomorrow cloud backend horsepuckey.
So let's hope Google's example in this regard catches on. We have gigabytes upon gigabytes of spare room for caches on most Android hardware; how about putting it to use?
1. Porn-related
2. Why google not working
3. Is internet down