Free iPhone

Google’s free iPhone app, Google Mobile, was already extremely handy with the addition of the much-vaunted voice search, but it turns out that it’s got more features than anybody first realized.


The Google Mobile team just blogged about an easter egg, a hidden menu in the free iPhone app that enables some extra goodies and options. To find it, go to the Settings tab in Google Mobile, and keep trying to scroll down below the “About” option at the bottom. Eventually, a menu called Bells and Whistles will appear. This is pretty low class to “hide” something like this, but hey, developers have to have a little fun too, right?

So what are these options?

Some of them are actually sounds: you can replace the default sounds with chicken or monkey noises, if for some odd reason you wish to. You can also change the colour of the Google Mobile Theme and see a live waveform when you talk. This is all kind of fun, but not that super-useful. But that isn’t the whole story…

The reason you really want to find this easter egg is the “open links in app” option. Some commentators argue that it should have been there in the first place and not hidden, and I agree with them. To “hide” a feature like this is much less charming than your free iPhone making chicken sounds.