Is there an app for that? Increasingly, this has become the go-to question for solving everyday problems in our lives. Typically, when users search for apps, they enter keywords like “tools” or “productivity” into their phone’s app store search bar. This is the model Apple started with the App Store in 2008, and others have followed suit with a categorical-based search ever since. Well, it turns out this search method misses the point of finding apps that do what you want.
We invented Functional Search® to allow users to find apps without even knowing exactly what they’re looking for—all you have to do is type what you want to do, and we’ll return apps to help. As a case study for why Functional Search® is a better app search, we’ve decided to showcase a few head-to-head examples. So let’s jump in.
Imagine you’re anticipating an important email (college admission letter, important client response, etc.) and you’ve been checking your inbox religiously hoping to see it pop up. After a couple days, you get irritated with how much time you’re spending clicking the refresh button, so you consider if there’s an app that can just notify you when the email shows up. Searching “alerts for email address” in Google Play yields results like eWeather HD, WhatsApp Messenger, and Bank of America. The same query in Quixey produces results such as Mail Alert, Mail Alert Pro, and Mail Tones. Which ones seem more valuable?
It’s time to get rid of that blaring alarm clock and wake up to something a bit more soothing. So you search “wake me up with a song,” hoping to find an app that can help you do just that. Google Play gives you results that make no sense—Piano Melody Free, Motivate Me to Exercise, and an artificial voice control app, to name a few. The same query in Quixey gives you just what you wanted—Playlist Alarm Clock, Smart Alarm Clock, and Alarm Rock, for example.
“Share content between devices”
You’re sick of dealing with files, photos, and music on all the different devices you own—phone, tablet, and computer. So you type “share content between devices” into the Google Play search bar. Now, what’s interesting about these results is that relevant apps like Evernote and Hoccer show up. But, hang on a second, what are Adobe Reader, textPlus and Pulse News doing above them? Isn’t Google Search all about instantly bringing you the most relevant content for your query? Try the same search in Quixey and you’ll see Hoccer at the top of the list, followed by Box and other data sharing apps such as DropCopy and Bump.
In a test of keyword-heavy search vs. a search that knows exactly what the query is asking, Quixey clearly wins every time. But why?
The answer lies in Functional Search® . The technology we spent over a year and a half building before it went live is a search engine catered specifically toward the current transformation the web. Google is fantastic at searching a web composed of static sites, but not one that’s evolving to be a web of function and action due to the dynamism of apps.
With its keyword search, other search engines can currently only take you to the doorstep of an app—and it’s often the wrong one. What Quixey does is recognize the inner workings of each app, so that when you search functionally, we open the door to just the right app and usher you in.
A number of startups make it easier to see what apps our friends like. For example, one company uses the notion of a friend’s “stamp of approval” to influence our behavior. This startup is betting that you are more likely to download an app if your friends have already approved of it. This is the same logic behind Google’s +1. They both bet that you are more likely to chose a search result if your friends “like” that result.
It isn’t the 90’s anymore. The content web still exists, but a new layer has emerged. Using cross-platform apps like WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook, people generate their own content live. Apps like Flipboard and your RSS reader allow you to choose how you engage with this content. Yelp, Maps, Skype, and Dropbox have changed the way we interact with each other and the world. This new layer of active participation is called the functional web.
Traditional search arose in the age of the content web- it doesn’t understand apps, it only understands key words. Unfortunately, with traditional search, it’s remarkably difficult to find the tools you need without exact phrasing or a recommendation from a friend. The functional web needs to be organized so we can discover the apps we need when we need them.
That’s where Quixey comes in. We understand where apps live, how people are using them, what APIs they are linked to and what they do. This knowledge lets Quixey power search for millions of apps across all platforms and devices.
