Google made a nice improvement to search on Android this week that’s going to be a big hit with music lovers. When looking for bands or artists, Google Search will now present users with handy links to their music apps.

This isn’t just a ploy to sell more music through the Play Store; Google Search also links to third-party apps and services like Spotify, Rdio, and iHeartRadio. It’s simply a way to make it easier to find and enjoy music on your Android device. Rather than opening multiple apps and making multiple searches, simply search for a band or artist once then choose the app you want from there.

Unfortunately, the feature appears to be available only to U.S. users for now, but it’s likely to rollout to other countries over time.

This isn’t the first time Google has made search more useful on Android, of course, and it has even bigger plans ahead. TechCrunch reports that the company is actively indexing pages inside native Android applications so that it can direct you to the right pages inside those apps when you make searches.

Later on, then, you may be able to search for information on Google then open results in side the Wikipedia app, for example — while restaurant searches may link you to the Yelp app, and movie searches could link to Flixster, Fandango, or IMDb.

• SourceGoogle
• ViaTechCrunch