For a search company I can’t believe how terrible the Android app search is. I can’t even search “bank” for my banking apps, and there doesn’t really seem to be any metadata except for the title that goes into the search. Which is absolutely ridiculous given how many companies name their apps something cReAtIvE like “home” or “Resideo” or “Smart Hq.” I just want to search GE for the damn GE app. Or “thermostat” for Resideo. Surely there’s something beyond surface level here because obviously this is an extensively solved problem. How is there not metadata or description searching at minimum? My only guess is fear of abuse but Google has definitely dealt with that for their entire existence and up until recently, managed to handle it fine.

  • Cloudless ☼
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    152 months ago

    The search is not designed to help you. It is designed to show sponsored apps and other results, so there is a better chance for Google’s profit.

  • @uzay
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    152 months ago

    I’m not sure if that helps you, but there are plenty of search focused launchers for android that let you add keywords as tags to apps as well like KISS Launcher and Kvaesitso

    • SagXD
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      52 months ago

      +1 for KISS You can even use Tags.

    • qaz
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      12 months ago

      Kvaesitso search is pretty bad. It’s unable to find the F-droid app when searching “fdroid”.

      • @uzay
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        72 months ago

        Cannot confirm. If I type in anything between “fdr” and “fdroid” it brings up F-droid for me.

  • Otter
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    2 months ago

    I’d love to have tags on apps. So many apps have a simple minimalistic name on the app, which is impossible to remember. I make do by renaming the app with terms I might search by.

    ex. “Authenticator Microsoft”, or “Vancollect City Garbage Trash Recycling

  • @angrynomad
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    62 months ago

    My favorite is when you type part of a word and it doesn’t even show all the matching apps, just a few at random

    • andrewOP
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      32 months ago

      Or then you type the next letter of the word and the result you want goes away, but only after you’re milliseconds from tapping it.