Search has gone mobile. Smart phones with large screens, decent keyboards, and wifi connection finally makes it fun to surf the web from a hand held device. I have tested iPhone web search applications and reviewed our five favorites.

My very first mobile phone back in 2001 promised fun and easy web access. The slow WAP connection and the tiny screen ensured that I went online only once from that phone.

And this experience has repeated itself with every mobile I have owned phone since (a total of 7). Now, finally, the time has come. On the iPhone it’s fun to surf the web.

But still, the browser window is rather small. Entering a query and browsing the search results in Safari is cumbersome. Web search apps make this easier and many of them integrate multiple search engines and services.

Finding the top 5 iPhone search apps was not easy. Searching iTunes store doesn’t return many results and the apps are found in three different categories, so browsing takes its sweet time.

I spent hours browsing and completed the results by searching a couple of good iPhone app directories (iPhone Application List and AppRater).

The top 5 search apps are all great apps and they all have their unique approach, and so I have no particular favorite among them but use the one best suited for the task at hand. When I’m on my iPhone, I like to keep things simple, so I’ll start with some simple yet powerful tools and move on to the more complex.

iSearch

iSearch is a simple application without many bells and whistles. However, it has exactly what it takes to make search easy on the iPhone.

As you start typing, the iSearch search helper suggests search phrases. This saves you from typing long queries.

Once you have done your search, you can choose to perform the same query as web search, image search and news search.

If you choose image search, you can then click an icon in the bottom right corner of your screen to toggle to thumbnail view.

Snappy Seeker

Snappy Seeker is easy to use, yet quite powerful: From a single interface you get access to all kinds or search tools.

You start by entering your query in the search box and press the Search button. You can now use the icons at the bottom of the browser window to take your query to another search engine.

These are your choices: Web search, image search, business search, product search, news search, map search, Wikipedia, Amazon, ebay, Technorati, YouTube, Flickr, Price Grabber and even iPhone application search.

There is also a button to open search results in Safari when you have found exactly what you were looking for.

Jumpsearch

Jumpsearch is similar to iSearch and SnappySeeker in that you type your query once and get to try it on different search engines. The big difference is the number of choices.

If you want the same easy interface but want more choices, Jumpsearch offers 50 different search destinations in these categories: Storefront retail, web-only retail, news and sports, book sellers, quotes/finance, reference, general search and other sources (mostly social networks).

If you decide you want to try Yahoo instead of Google or Borders in stead of Amazon, you’re there in two clicks.

Once you have fond what you were looking for, there is an option to open web pages in Safari.

iClueless

iClueless is not strictly speaking a search application. It is a search portal for the iPhone (they have an application ready and are waiting for approval to be included in iTunes App Store).

For starters, you can perform general web search queries using Yahoo and Google. iClueless also makes it easy to search other popular sites: Wikipedia, Answers.com, Amazon, ebay, espn, Flickr, IMDb and TMZ. There is also dictionary search, weather search, news search, stock search and search for movie theatres in the vicinity. For some reason, the iPhone’s GPS unit is not used for local search. In stead you enter a city or a zip code.

Google Mobile

Google Mobile is a collection of applications for smart phones (not just iPhone, but also Android, BlackBerry, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, SonyEricsson and Windows Mobile).

The search app has a text mode and a speech mode. Speech search is great — no need for typing, just lift the phone to your ear and speak your query. It works well in English and for a science fiction fan like me, it’s great fun. The future is here I did test searches in Spanish, which worked, but unfortunately speech search didn’t recognize any of my queries in Norwegian, French, Russian and Italian.

Text search also has some cool features: Once you start typing, it will suggest queries. First it will suggest contacts from your contact list and popular queries from your local Google index (Google.no for me). As you type, the suggestions become more and more relevant. Once you have chosen a query, you also get suggestions for refining your search. These come in the form of a row of buttons above the iPhone keyboard.

In addition to general web search, you get access, in a format adapted to your screen, to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google News, Google Notebook, Google Image Search, Google Translate, Google Maps, YouTube and Google Earth.

Even if you don’t have a Google account, News, Maps, Earth and Image makes this worthwhile. Google Maps for mobile combined with the GPS unit in your iPhone, makes this tool a very convenient and fun way to find directions and local information.

Photo by cogdogblog (CC licence on Flickr).