A new mobile search engine has been launched by one of the largest Palm OS software developers in the world. Handcase is a Brazilian firm, with over 2 million mobile owners using its products in 80 different countires – and today Handcase is promoting its new mobile-only search engine, Gune.
What does it do?
Gune stands for “site” in Basque – and the core offering of Gune isn’t very exciting I’m afraid to say. But bear with me, because I do think this is a great option for the majority of phones.
It’s a very, very simple interface. There’s a single text box, and when you enter your query Gune returns the top 10 results from both Google and Bing. The display is pared down so it will fit nicely on a mobile screen, and load quickly.
More interestingly, Gune is attempting to build a database of mobile-only websites. There are other mobile website collectors out there, like PdOOP, .tel or .mobi – but all Gune asks is that you ask to be put on their database, and your on. Then users can search a mobile-only web-listing, rather than using a mobile search engine to search the on-line web.
Ricardo Garay, CEO Handcase says that “the goal here was to optimize the time of the user and [provide] a superior experience with search.”
Handcase is launching Gune in English first, with Portugese and Spanish versions to follow later. Given the nature of Handcase, it’s unsurprisingly available for Palm mobiles already, along with Java and Blackberry devices.
What we think?
This is one of the better low-tech mobile search engines I’ve seen. I ran a few searches on it, and generally found what I was looking for quite quickly. It’s also free, which is a boost. It’s not going to revolutionise mobile search or anything, but it’s a nice wee engine for non-smartphone users.
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