Google’s latest Google Mobile iPhone app caused quite a big buzz over the weekend just because it wasn’t approved by Apple in time for Friday which was when it was expected. Now that it’s out and free for download from the App Store, I had a chance to download it and see whether the excitement was actually worth it. The much anticipated Google app basically is a search app for the iPhone with the extra special functionality that lets users to speak into their iPhones to submit search to Google’s search engine, which can serve up both standard search results as well as movie showtimes, addresses, and other handy information. While most users did not seem to have any problem with voice recognition, it seems clear that much work still needs to be done for searches involving multiple words for example, as the application takes ages just to recognise the wrong words!

And this is not the end of all the critique, as Jason from TechCrunch have mentioned…

My biggest issue with the app is that there is apparently no way to use the voice detection feature to call a contact, despite the fact that you can search through contacts using manual text entry. One of my biggest gripes about the iPhone is that there’s no way to make a hands-free call, and while this would still require at least one buttonpress, it would be an improvement.

I suppose we shouldn’t have that much of an expectation to take it for granted that Google’s application should provide voice recognise for our iPhone contacts. Afterall these have nothing to do with Google, it sounds more like an issue that should be built in to the iPhone and addressed by Apple altogether, instead of having the functionality imported from different applications just to fill in bits of missing gaps of a puzzle. Nevertheless, the app does seem promising and makes it quite convenient to browse the internet and your onboard contacts, so I would highly recommend you give it a try, afterall it’s free!

Click here and the link should take you directly to iTunes. Alternatively, if you’re using your iPhone now, just tap into the App Store and you should be able to find it by simply searching “Google”.