

Ask HN: Review my mobile Safari add-on - vais

With more and more people using Safari on the iPhone to browse the web for work and play, the lack of in-page search functionality is baffling. If you have ever used the "Edit → Find" feature of your regular Web browser, you must wonder why it is not available in Safari on the iPhone. I have grown tired of waiting on Apple to add it, and the existing alternatives are:<p>a) Install and use a totally different browser -- not an option, I love Safari
b) Use one of the lame bookmarklets circa 2007 -- tried it, hated it: too buggy and no UI<p>So, I made my own. I went the bookmarklet route because this is the only way to add features directly to Safari. Accessing in-page search functionality is exactly 2 taps - same as the two clicks required for "Edit → Find" in traditional browsers.<p>I hope I have managed to pique your interest even a little bit - you can see the videos and read more about Find In Page for mobile Safari here:<p>http://findinpage.blogspot.com<p>Thanks in advance for your comments,<p>Vais
======
milestinsley
You are charging $0.99 for an app that does nothing more than copy a URL to
the pasteboard. I understand that you are trying to make the process of adding
the bookmarklet to Safari simple, but making it free with a how-to
video/tutorial would be way cooler.

I think your target audience (people who want in-page search) will also notice
that the app is very slim on features and understand that it's simply a URL!

Of course, it's $0.99! Personally, I'm happy to pay that, but I think you have
unnecessarily raised the barrier for entry for a lot of people, who are used
getting a lot more for that price.

The actual bookmarklet is really cool. Nice work! It's pretty slick and does
the job really well. I can think of quite a few times I will be using it :)

~~~
cmelbye
There actually is already a free "Find in Page" bookmarklet:
[http://www.lifeclever.com/17-powerful-bookmarklets-for-
your-...](http://www.lifeclever.com/17-powerful-bookmarklets-for-your-iphone/)

(Number one on the list.)

~~~
milestinsley
Cool. I will have to try this out too!

~~~
vais
Please do ;) Once you install it, here are a few suggested search terms
guaranteed to put a smile on your face:

empty string, $, <, >, span, div, table

Spoiler: any reserved Regular Expressions characters will result in an invalid
search. Any reserved HTML keywords will expose markup and garble the page
beyond recognition.

More details on that here: [http://findinpage.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-makes-
this-find-...](http://findinpage.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-makes-this-find-in-
page.html)

