Search vs Swipe
Of the developments in Android UX that have made more sense, the ability to quickly search for apps is probably one of the better steps. If I need to find an app that I use less than weekly, I swipe up from the bottom and enter the first letter in the search bar.
This search capability has replaced me looking for groupings of app or swiping through 20 pages of apps until I’ve found the one I’m looking for. Often, previous searches will be right there in the search bar, making it even easier.
Search for apps wasn’t always available and it only started to make sense when the number of apps one downloaded made scrolling endlessly a problem. This is the same for other platforms where the ability to look up what you’ve added to a system doesn’t scale: Facebook Groups, Alexa Skills, Chrome Extensions. Every platform that grows in third party extension needs to consider lookup.
