Google's Mobile Image Search Adds Menu

Google updated the mobile interface for Image Search launched in October. I've only noticed the change in Chrome and Safari for iPhone, but it doesn't seem to be an experiment.

Google now shows a three-dot menu with options like "visit page", "view image", "send feedback" and "search by image", instead of using links. You can still swipe to go to the next or previous image result and tapping the image sends you to the most relevant page that includes it.

Google Image Search's Loading Animation

Google Image Search shows an animation below the search result's thumbnail while the original image is downloaded. As you probably noticed, Google first shows the thumbnail, which is already loaded as part of the search results page, then it replaces the thumbnail with the full-size image when you click a result.

Update: This is not a new feature. Thanks, +Sushubh Mittal.

The animation is especially useful for large images, since you may have to wait a few seconds until the images are downloaded. Here's an example and here's the animation:

Google Image Search Tests Snippets

One of the features that was removed in the current Google Image Search interface is snippets. Now Google only shows the title of the page, the domain and the size of the image in pixels. Snippets used to reveal more information about the photo or the page that includes the image, just like the snippets that are used for all the other search results.

Google considers bringing back snippets. Here's a screenshot from a Google experiment:

In this case, the snippet is quite useful, but very long: "the company's energy supply. This makes the Googleplex one of the USA's largest corporate solar installations. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take photos on the roof, so here's one Google made earlier."

Google's regular interface doesn't show snippets:

Yahoo Image Search's Fullscreen Slideshow

One of the features I've always wanted to see in Google Image Search is slideshows. Google lets you quickly go to the next image result using the right arrow shortcut, but a slideshow button would make things even easier. Picasa Web search used to have this feature. I know that webmasters will say that this wastes their bandwidth, so let's get past this.

It turns out that Yahoo already has this feature. Yahoo's search results are powered by Microsoft Bing, but Yahoo has its own UI and it does a pretty good job. Yahoo uses the same infinite scrolling interface (Google borrowed it from Bing), but things look different once you click a search result. Images occupy the entire page and you can click the small "play" button at the bottom of the page to start a slideshow or just use the "p" keyboard shortcut. There are some cool zoom effects for big images and, if you use a browser that supports the HTML5 fullscreen API (Chrome/Firefox for desktop and Android, Safari for desktop), you can click the "view fullscreen" button at the top of the page and only see the images. You may want to restrict the results to large images.

Yahoo has a similar interface for the mobile search engine and it looks more like the old Google Image Search for mobile. The new Google interface has some benefits if you don't want to see all the results sequentially, but the old UI placed more emphasis on the images. The nice thing is that Yahoo has the slideshow button in the mobile interface, as well.

New Google Image Search for Mobile

Google's image search engine has a new interface for smartphones and tablets. The new UI looks just like the desktop UI, but you can use swipes to navigate between the image results.

Here are some screenshots from my Nexus 7. When you tap an image result, a black box with a bigger version of the image will open. You can also find some additional information about the image.

Swipe left to see the next image result, swipe right to go to the previous result. Gestures work just like the left/right keyboard shortcuts in the desktop interface. Tap an image to open the page that includes it.

A similar interface is available for smartphones. Here's a screenshot from an iPhone running iOS7:

Google will probably say that it changed the interface to make it more consistent and provide an unified interface for both desktop and mobile devices. There are some other advantages: you can scroll down to see more results, you can scroll up and quickly change the query or switch to web search.

I find the old interface more intuitive and better suited for mobile devices. It made it more obvious that you can use gestures by showing the previous and the next image result, search results didn't move around and you could find more information about the images. The new smartphone interface only displays the domain name and it no longer shows the title of the page and the image size (the tablet interface still shows them). Here's a screenshot of the old UI:

Google's Reverse Image Search, Now in Chrome

Google's reverse image search feature is about to become more popular, now that you can easily use it in Chrome 30+. You no longer have to install an extension, just right-click an image and click "search Google for this image".

"Search by image allows you to do a reverse image search and discover all sorts of content that's related to a specific image. For example, search using a picture of your favorite band and see search results that might include similar images, webpages about the band, and even sites that include the same picture," explains Google.

It's interesting to notice that Google uploads the image, instead of using the URL. Maybe Google wanted to make sure that you'll always get some results: not all the URLs are publicly accessible (for example: Gmail's image attachments).

Reverse image search also works for modified versions of an image, so you can use it to find more information about an image, other sites that include the image, the original source of an image. You can also use TinEye, a similar reverse image search engine.

Google Mobile Image Search Regression

Google has a great mobile interface for image search. It was launched in 2010 and improved multiple times since then. You can use swipes to go to the next image result or to the previous one. It looks like Google changed the image search UI for smartphones and tablets and now sends you to a landing page that shows the image and loads the corresponding page in the background. Intuitive gestures are gone and now you have to use the back button.

This seems to be limited to iPhones and iPads running iOS 7, so it's probably a bug. A lot of people complain about this in the Google Search Forum.

There are many reasons why the new interface is strange: loading the associated page uses more bandwidth and that's not a good idea for mobile devices, it's more difficult to check multiple search results, thumbnails are smaller and even the desktop interface shows a bigger image instead of sending users to a new page.