Google is now offering new application that promises to greatly speed up searches for smartphones running on Nokia's S60 3rd Edition platform.

The native software, which runs directly on a smartphone and not through a web browser, is available as a free download when you go to mobile.google.com from your Nseries or ESeries Nokia handset. Once installed, the software places a Google search box directly on your smartphone's home screen.

The point of the shortcut is to allow users to perform a search without having to launch they're smartphone's web browser to initiate the process and, by extension, speed things up considerably—by an average of 40% for an initial search, according to Google's own research.

Type a query into the box and press search to launch your smartphone's browser, which should quickly provide the results of your query, as long as a wireless connection is present, of course.

Unfortunately, Google's search box is only available to Nokia smartphones with a 'Ctrl' or 'pencil/edit' key—otherwise you must access the applet through the regular S60 application launcher.

Google's search box for S60 smartphones is based on a new, more localized mobile search engine Google introduced a few weeks ago. The overall interface's been revamped as well.

At the Mobile World Congress earlier this month, Nokia and Google announced the addition of Google search to the search client Nokia plans to bundle with it latest smartphones: the N96, N78, 6210 Navigator, and 6220 classic. Sure, Google's search box would be a repetitive addition to any of these devices, but that shouldn't stop those who own any of Nokia's other S60 3rd Edition products from giving it a try.

In addition to Google,Nokia Mobile Search aggregates results from a number of different sources, including Windows Live and Yahoo in the Web search area.

[via All About Symbian]