Searching on mobile devices can be a tedious affair, especially if you’re plugging the same query into multiple apps. Do@ (pronounced do-at), a free iPhone app launching today, aims to solve that problem by letting you seamlessly search across multiple mobile web apps and services.
O- stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City today, Do@ co-founder Ami Ben-David demonstrated the app and discussed how it revolutionizes mobile web search.
Instead of just opening a bunch of web links, a search on Do@ pulls up several mobile web apps at once. For example, searching a movie title on the app pulls up results from Fandango, IMDB, and Netflix, all of which are fully interactive and with much of the functionality you’d expect. And best of all, you can swipe between the apps just as easily (and in a similar interface) as switching between open web pages in the iPhone’s web browser.
Do@ uses an HTML5 engine to pull the web apps together. It’s not actually giving you access to the native apps you can download from the App Store, but for most services web apps are good enough (and they’re only getting better). You can also favorite specific web apps — so if you’re a big IMDB addict, you can make sure that app always pops up first for movie searches.The app is fast and intuitive, displaying an amount of polish that’s admirable for something that’s newly launched — when it works, at least. A few bugs still mar the experience, like random freezing and crashing. Those issues will likely be ironed out in upcoming updates.
Do@ is based in San Francisco and was founded last year. So far, it has raised a total of $8.6 million in funding, with $7 million of that announced today from an investment by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
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