I recently acquired an HTC Thunderbolt, running the Android operating system. Being used to a Windows Mobile device for the past several years, I had become quite accustomed to being able to search my calendar and other data items.
My experience today bummed me out when I walked into the mattress store, and attempted to search my calendar with details that my wife had given to me regarding the quote she received last week. Search for mattress in my calendar yielded no results. Yet, after 5 minutes of manually reviewing all appointments in my calendar, while the salesperson patiently waited, I could see that the item was in the calendar.
Research on the Web indicated others having the same issue – the consensus was that Android out-of-the-box does not search calendar items. HTC units may have additional functionality from the manufacturer for search calendar (other items from my calendar did come up in a different search); however, for all intents and purposes, search does not search calendar items.
Enter Searchify (http://www.appbrain.com/app/searchify/uk.co.olilan.searchify). After installing, it adds a search-type into the out-of-the-box google search prompt, named “Searchify”. Typing in that text box “cal mattress” now results in the calendar item I sought earlier.
One annoyance: I use my voice translation A LOT. Saying the word “cal” was not working. In Searchify, you can either disable the keyword “cal” requirement, or change change the keyword to something that you can speak, like “calendar”. I elected the former by editing the Searchify settings, long-clicking the “calendar search” settings, and removing the keyword. Now when I search, I transparently get calendar items along with everything else.
