
  Swiftype for Mobile: Full-text search for iOS and mobile Web - 100k
http://swiftype.com/mobile
======
100k
I'm really proud of this release. I'm happy to answer any questions about it.

If anyone has any doubts about how hard Geoffrey Grosenbach or Ryan Bates work
on their screencasts, put them to rest. Those things take _forever_ to make!

~~~
jamesjyu
Yep, never underestimate how long a quality screencast takes. It's totally
worth it since many developers and customers want to see what it looks like
before trying it. And especially for platforms, describing in words is
sometimes too abstract.

~~~
100k
I believe Ryan Bates has said 1 hour per minute. If anything, that's an
understatement. Maybe it gets easier as you do more (this is my second
screencast).

~~~
jamesjyu
1 hour per minute is a pretty good estimate. It does get easier. It's all
about preparation and setting up an efficient workflow.

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hnriot
I am confused about the swiftype value proposition? What does it offer over
simply installing elastic search (et al.) and pushing json documents. Making a
mobile/web search front-end isn't very difficult using json results+mustache
templates etc.

I was unable to find on the swifttype website what the advantage of using the
product. I did like the drag/drop result ranking though, that's pretty neat.

~~~
100k
For developers, we have an API
(<http://swiftype.com/documentation/quickstart>) that is not much different
than setting up Solr or ElasticSearch. However, you no longer need to manage
the search servers. We handle reliablity and scaling. On top of that, we offer
client libraries (like SwiftypeTouch), search analytics, and a management
dashboard (think: you write the search, the business people take over managing
the results).

For less technical users, we have a web crawler with automates the creation of
search engines. Combined with our crawler controls and meta tags
(<http://swiftype.com/documentation/meta_tags>) you can build a really
powerful site search engine with little effort.

~~~
hnriot
thanks for the information. Speaking as someone who has worked in the search
industry for many years I am surprised to see this. For me, setting up an ES
server on AWS and pushing content directly into it seems pretty trivial, but I
get the business analytics, dashboard etc.

The meta tags seems like a reinvention of og?

~~~
prateekdayal
We have been using Swiftype at SupportBee for searching the help docs -
<https://supportbee.com/helps>. We still use ES for core application search
(tickets etc) but for things like help documentation, site search etc it's
hard to beat Swiftype's setup time and ease of use. The analytics is pretty
useful too. Disclaimer: Swiftype is our customer as well but we used them for
many months before they found out about us and signed up :)

~~~
bosky101
404, guess that was <https://supportbee.com/help>

funny though that it shows 0 results for "supportbee"

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danso
I saw "Swiftype" and my brain thought "Swiftkey" + "Swype"...two things that I
wish would someday come to iOS.

~~~
yock
I too thought immediately of Swiftkey, and wondered if Swiftype will have
branding and/or trademark issues.

OT, but Swiftkey is actually working on a swype-like input called Flow.
<http://www.swiftkey.net/flow/>

