Little by little, the app improvements found in Ice Cream Sandwich are trickling down to older phones. The Google Search app for Android 2.2 and 2.3 has seen an update, bringing the look and feel and some of the extended functionality of the Android 4 version. New features include an updated user interface, search results grouped by type, better location-based searches, and the ability to remove searches in your history by long-pressing the offending item.

We downloaded the update, and it's perceptibly faster over older versions to load, with results delivered quickly. Another nice touch is the arrow shortcut to the right of each each search suggestion: tap it and the term is completed in the input box, allowing you to add more terms before searching. The update's available now from the Android Market.