Google Instant Previews is now available on mobile phones running Android 2.2+ or iOS 4.x.
The feature, which is supported across 38 different languages, lets users preview a website before making the decision to click on a link. By selecting a magnifying glass icon next to a search result, users can browse the websites that appear on the first page of results. Tapping the page preview will open up the respective link.
We think that Google's mobile implementation of Instant Previews is elegant. It's also quite snappy -- at least on my iPhone 4. Instant Previews will often showcase the mobile version of a web page, which is a nice touch.
When thinking about the overall utility for this type of feature, the best usage scenarios are probably times when users have limited bandwidth. Having said that, we do question how useful this feature will be for most users, because when Googling on the go, most users are just as likely to visit a page, wait a few seconds and then return to search results if the page isn't appropriate. In other words, it can take more time to browse through the instant preview options than it can to just visit a few pages.
Google also created this video showcasing Instant Previews: