June 9, 2009 4:19 PM PDT

Google releases Quick Search Box for Mac

by Tom Krazit
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Google's Quick Search Box

(Credit: Google)

Google has released a new Mac application that lets users search both their Macs and the Web in the same window as well as launch applications.

Google Quick Search Box was unveiled in January, but is now ready for a formal release, Google announced on its Mac Blog. It's a pretty lightweight application that Mac users can use as a universal search tool to find local documents, applications or Web sites featuring a certain term: for example, a query for "Wilco" allowed me to launch my iTunes library of Wilco songs, read news stories about the band, and find images.

It's basically a Googlized front end on Mac OS X's Spotlight search, according to a Web page explaining the difference between Google Desktop and Google Quick Search Box. The main difference between the two Google products is that you can launch applications from the Quick Search Box, which isn't possible in Google Desktop.

Techcrunch noticed that you can also use Google Quick Search Box as a Twitter client, because the world apparently needed yet another Twitter client. It doesn't appear that you can use Quick Search Box to actually do real-time searches of Twitter, however, which was the subject of much of the speculation regarding Google's potential interest in Twitter.

Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
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by shellcodes_coder June 9, 2009 5:24 PM PDT
That's good for about 1000 people that use os x but why have they left about 100 users that use Linux?
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by ikramerica--2008 June 9, 2009 5:51 PM PDT
google desktop is annoying enough. not sure what this adds.

anyway, I don't need google indexing my files. Spotlight does it just fine.
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by explodingzebras June 9, 2009 6:11 PM PDT
I totally agree, Spotlight works just fine, I don't need yet another application / applet using up precious resources.
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by rossipoo June 9, 2009 7:43 PM PDT
Spotlight really ought to have normal internet search built in.
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by AndrewRich June 9, 2009 11:37 PM PDT
I'm not sure what differentiates this from built-in Spotlight.
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by MPB June 10, 2009 1:42 AM PDT
yeah it looks really good but i'll still use Spotlight.
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by FutureGuy June 10, 2009 8:23 AM PDT
A search that lauches applications, wow now that's pushing the limits of innovation.
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by BogusBasin June 10, 2009 10:08 AM PDT
Uh why?
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