iTunes Instant: Search iTunes at high speed thanks to 15-year-old developer

If you've heard of Google's instant search, then you'll be right at home with iTunes Instant. We're all aware that iTunes doesn't have the most friendly of search engines, but thanks to youthful developer Stephen Ou, searching the iTunes store just got a whole lot easier.

iTunes Instant doesn't just give you suggestions or recommendations as you type in a search query, it actually gives you real-time search feedback (album and artwork in this case) as you enter a query, character by character. Possibly the best thing about iTunes Instant is that it's the work of Ou, a 15-year old based in the Bay Area in California. According to TheiLoop, Ou developed iTunes Instant in under three hours, using Apple's own Search API.

Ou says that iTunes Instant "will make your life better." And we're inclined to believe it. Trying to search for an artist that you can't quite remember the name of in iTunes can produce some rather unfruitful results. Using iTunes Instant just might be the ticket to solving such frustrating queries.

Try iTunes Instant for yourself here. If you're interested in searching the App Store instead of the music store, Jordan Satok's App Store Instant on App Of The Day uses similar techniques. Satok and Ou are buddies, and Ou contributed to the development of the app search tool as well.

[hat tip to 9to5Mac]
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