carl
Yeah, I'm not saying it's not possible to have a dedicated search app that simply redirects links to your default browser, and all the apps you mentioned behave the same way in Android.
I was merely pointing out that this is quite a dishonest implementation by Google, because in the case of "pure" search engines, they aren't going to spend the time and money required to develop and maintain a mobile app that simply redirects search queries to their web site. If they do develop an app, most of them will go the extra mile and create a full blown web browser, trying to keep users there when they tap on search results. If not, most of them won't even bother to make an app because anybody can use the website. And they of course know many good search engines (like Kagi) don't even have an app.
Google knows this, and they're pretending to comply with the EU directive while knowing full well that most people aren't going to switch away from Google search if that means also switching away from their existing web browser.
That said, I do agree that Kagi's case might be different and a dedicated app could actually be worth developing. Like @Jon said above, it could be a nice marketing vector, as people would find the app when searching in the App Store / Play Store too, probably with glowing reviews 🙂 But it could also prove very useful to have an easier way to use the AI features from our phones.
For instance, I'm thinking we could "share" a PDF document or a YouTube link directly to the Kagi app, so that we could get the Kagi Summarizer in a more native, "offline" UI inside a proper app, rather than having to open a tab inside a mobile browser. The conversational stuff (ask questions about document) could also look and feel a lot better inside an app I think.
I have no idea of Kagi's plans and expertise when it comes to mobile development, and I may be biased due to my Flutter experience. But I do think Flutter would be a great choice for a "simple" app like this which doesn't require access to any low-level APIs or anything.
Development is quick and easy, you get Android+iOS versions with a single, clean codebase that's easy to maintain by a single dev/team. Plus possibly desktop apps for Windows+MacOS+Linux, if you ever wanted that! But despite the single codebase, you can easily customize the UI to look and feel 100% native in each platform, with Material widgets in Android and "Cupertino" widgets in iOS. And performance is as close as it gets to native Swift/Kotlin for a cross-platform framework.
The more I think about it, the more I see it 🙂
