Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages was the Search giant’s answer to Facebook’s Instant Articles where they would provide almost instant loading articles. It started with signing up 30 publishers which then swelled to 1600 publishers and it was to be launched early this year.
It was reported that Accelerated Mobile Pages will be launched this week and specifically today on the 24th. It seems to have been rolled out already on mobile as shown by the following screenshots.
In the first instance, you could only view AMP pages in a demo site but right now, you can view these instant loading versions right from search. The Accelerated Mobile Pages versions are marked with a green lightning icon at the bottom which when tapped loads the said page. While on the AMP view, you can scroll up and down to read the tapped article and scroll forward to the next article which is usually of the same nature.
As expected, the articles load faster than standard webpages and they feature the unique styling of the said publication. You can view graphics like photos and videos just like what you will find on a typical website. In addition, while on the carousel, you will see the URL to the publisher’s website and an indicator on top that identifies the point at which the article is.
As of now, AMP is only available when you use Search on mobile but I was not able to get the same results while on desktop. Technically websites were made for the PC era and the now mobile era necessitated the need for mobile optimized websites. This is the natural evolution to a better web surfing experience on mobile and it would be a surprise if this was ported to the desktop.
