Vais Salikhov wrote to tell me about Find In Page, his newly available $0.99 app. The app isn’t. Instead, it’s a Mobile Safari bookmarklet. Confused? Allow me to explain:
Mobile Safari, like any modern browser, supports bookmarklets. Bookmarklets are compact blurbs of JavaScript saved as a bookmark. When you navigate to a JavaScript bookmark the browser simply executes the JavaScript in the current page.
So, instead of writing a complete Safari replacement to add the missing Find In Page capability, you write JavaScript to take the search term and then find it in the page. Add that JavaScript as a bookmark and you’re all set.
Vais’ twist is this: he’s selling his bookmarklet in the App Store for $0.99. His angle is clever: he’s created a simple app that places the bookmarklet JavaScript on the pasteboard. The user can then add a bookmark and set its location by pasting the JavaScript. This YouTube video demonstrates the installation:
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