Open Gmail Links Using Google Apps in iOS

The latest version of the Gmail app for iOS added a feature that opens links using other Google apps: Chrome, Google Maps and YouTube, assuming you've already installed them. It works well for Google Maps links and YouTube links, but not that well for other links: some open using Chrome, but most links open using the internal browser of the Gmail app.

If you don't like this feature, you can disable it by tapping the settings icon next to the account switcher, picking Google Apps and unchecking the apps you don't want to handle Gmail links.

You can't change the default browser in iOS, but some Google apps include an option to use Chrome. For example, the YouTube app opens all the links using Chrome, if you've installed the app, and you can disable this feature from the settings. When you open a page from a Google app like YouTube, Gmail or Google+, Chrome shows a button that sends you to the previous app, just like the Android back button.

Google Image Search Shows the Images From a Page

There are many extensions and applications that let you see all the images from a web page. Another way to do that is to use Google Image Search. Search for [site:URL], where URL is the address of the page. This doesn't work for domain names, subdomains and subdirectories because Google shows the images for all the URLs that start with the name you've entered.

Example: [site:http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html].

It's not a new feature, it's just another way to use the site: operator.

Finding HTC One Using Google and Bing

When HTC named its latest flagship phone HTC One, I wasn't sure if it was a great idea. It's hard to find information about HTC One when there are so many pages about HTC One X, HTC One S, HTC One V and a few other phones with similar names.

Almost 3 months after HTC announced its phone, I tried 3 basic queries using Google and Bing: [htc one], [htc one review] and [htc one price]. I've switched to the US English interface and made sure that the results aren't influenced by personalization. All the screenshots show the first Bing results on the left side and the first Google results on the right side. For some of the screenshots, I scrolled down past the ads.

The results for [htc one]:

Bing's top organic result is the HTC One X homepage and the HTC One homepage is not even in the top 50 results. All Google results from the first page are about HTC One and the first result is the right one.

The results for [htc one review]:

The top 3 Bing results are HTC One X reviews, while all Google results from the first page are about HTC One.

The results for [htc one price]:

The first Bing result is about HTC One V and the third one is about One X, One S and One V. Google's results are relevant.

It's not clear if Google does a better job because it favours recent results or because it realizes that HTC One is a different entity. When searching for [htc one], the first Google result about One X is at #38.