Google Quick Search Box

New Mac utility from Google: Quick Search Box. Sort of like a cross between Quicksilver and the iPhone Google Search app. The Quicksilver similarities aren’t surprising — one of the Google engineers responsible for Quick Search Box is Quicksilver auteur Nicholas Jitkoff. It’s like a re-thinking of Quicksilver from the ground up, with a lot less fiddliness.

Calling it a “developer preview” seems apt at this point, though — it hung on my machine several times in the hour or so I’ve been trying it. Lots of promise though, including a plugin system that, as far as I can tell, isn’t yet documented anywhere. (Look inside the app bundle and you’ll see that most of its features are implemented as plugins.)

★ Tuesday, 13 January 2009