Earlier this week, we launched our iPhone app with much excitement – it was the culmination of many months of work, so we couldn’t help being curious to see what people thought.

Ewan at Mobile Industry Review says:

“[Ed note: In the context of your average mobile search engine] It’s incredibly annoying to have to click, click, click on a mobile device, irrespective what type. There’s a cost in terms of time and battery (assuming you’re on an unlimited data plan) to every single tap or click.

So they’ve tried really hard to get it right first time. A total godsend for any mobile user. [...] Nice work Taptu!”

Scott at MobileCrunch says:

“Another great feature of the current version of the Taptu app are context sensitive search filters included beneath the default search filters. As you can see, my search for beer produced a number of beer-related links. Mmmmm…beeer.

Bottom line: Taptu is a pretty slick mobile search solution.”

What’s On iPhone says:

“Google works just fine on the iPhone, especially now that iGoogle is back on line. But is it the only choice of search engines for the device? NO WAY!

Taptu brings a unique aproach to web searches on the iPhone with its new search engine. Designed to be finger friendly, it is intended for small screen. And it shows.”

Now, we have also had a few bits of criticism from some iTunes reviewers, who have flagged up that our index isn’t up to scratch for every type of search term. That’s a fair comment – our index is growing every day and will continue to improve as we keep plowing more material into it. In fact, you can help improve our index by recommending the best mobile sites out there if we don’t already list them.

Our thanks go out to everyone who’s taken time to look at the app, reviewed or commented (positively or negatively constructively) over the past few months. Now, how about I go get one of ‘em new 3GS iPhones and test that Taptu works properly on it? Oooh shiny!

Look ma, we’re on the telly!

On Friday, Sky News broadcast a report on Google’s 10th Birthday (Happy birthday, guys!) Looking to the future of search, Sky interviewed Steve, our CEO, on how mobile search fits into the exciting times ahead.

You’ll find the Taptu segment on mobile search at the 4 minutes mark, but the whole report is interesting, covering the likes of Microsoft Live Search, Cuil and Powerset semantic search engine.

We’re now all home after an eventful week at Mobile World Congress, spent meeting new and interesting people who love the mobile web as much as we do, looking out for new phones and services, and eating great Spanish tapas.

Since launching many new features on Monday, we’ve made the news a few times.

TechDigest says “We’ve been getting excited about Taptu for months now, so it’s fantastic to see they won the Global Community Award at the MoMo Peer Awards last night at the Mobile World Congress, rewarding our confidence in this small English start-up to no end.”

Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK agreed that “if the future is social search – as many think it is – then the future must also be mobile social search, since the mobile is such a social device.”

Fritz Nelson from Information Week writes about MWC and the lack of innovation since last year. However, he highlights Taptu as one of the mobile service that have caught his attention. “Taptu, a startup based in the U.K., also has a compelling story — perhaps even more so. It builds not only relevance into its results, it brings those results to within a click of accessing. It presents results based on a ranking of social popularity, provides categories (like blogs, news stories, videos), a nifty little summary of the item, and then a one-click way to share it.”

Susi Weaser from Shiny Shiny, writes “It’s good to see that there are people out there who haven’t just accepted Google as the only option when it comes to internet searches. In particular, Taptu have vowed to take on mobile searching, with their easy peasy service.”

Peggy Ann Salz from MSearchGroove posted an article on the new features we launched at MWC, but also interviewed Steve, our CEO, in a podcast about where he thinks mobile search is heading.

The Dutch Cowboys interviewed Steve at the stand, also capturing a bit of the atmosphere of the conference in their video, and Heise Online congratulated us on the Mobile Monday award we received and are very excited about!

Here’s a translation of the Dutch Cowboys’ text for those who, like me, may be Dutch-impaired (kindly provided by Raimo from Mobile Monday Amsterdam)

“The readers of Dutchcowboys know that Search is one of our favourite things. Moreover web 2.0 and Social media play more and more an important role in things we are involved in. For this reason it is a pleasure to hear an entrepreneur and visionary talk about all this even more so that it is happening on your mobile. Closer it cannot get.

Some will think that this is however the millionth promise that search on a cellphone will make it entirely. While the device manufacturers still struggle with the (business)model around mobile search Taptu might have the correct answer. Listen to the passionate Steve Ives who speaks about his social mobile search application Taptu.”