Google app on iOS gets faster load times, AMP articles in search, keyboard shortcuts, more
Faster load and search times are the highlight feature of an update to the Google app on iOS. Like on the mobile web and Android, AMP articles will now show up in search results.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google has been building AMP out step by step on mobile: it started highlighting AMP pages in mobile search results back in February, and this update closes the platform gap by bringing those fast-loading articles into the Google app on iOS, where they previously only appeared on mobile web and Android. It also continues a longer arc of Google deepening its own iOS app as a search surface, following its 2015 move to surface app content directly in Chrome and the Google app.
First-order effects
- iOS users of the Google app get measurably faster load and search times plus keyboard shortcuts, narrowing the feature gap with the Android experience.
- Publishers with AMP pages gain a new distribution surface: their accelerated articles now appear in Google search results inside the iOS app, not just the mobile browser.
Second-order effects
- With AMP now live across mobile web, Android, and iOS, publishers face mounting pressure to maintain AMP versions of every article — a pressure that sharpens given Google's stated plan to route mobile search clicks to the AMP version of a page when one exists, making non-AMP pages effectively invisible to mobile readers.
- Apple gains nothing from this update and loses a little: every improvement to Google's native iOS app keeps search engagement inside Google's own shell rather than Safari, where Apple controls more of the experience.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds through the rest of 2016, AMP stops being an opt-in speed badge and becomes the de facto format for mobile news distribution, giving Google — not publishers or browser vendors — control over how the mobile web renders.
- That consolidation sets up the publisher-side tension that still defines search today: platforms decide the delivery format, and publishers' leverage over how their content appears shrinks accordingly.
The trend: Google is methodically extending AMP from a mobile-web experiment into the default reading layer of its entire search ecosystem, app store presence included.