The iOS app is actually fairly nice on an iPad. It doesn’t necessarily better the stock browser, but it does have some interesting elements that mark it apart. The major design feature of Axis is its search bar: as you type in your search information, Yahoo generates a tabbed preview view of each page, letting you see what the results are as you type.
Unfortunately, while the iOS side of the platform is passable, the desktop side is not. Axis on my Mac is little more than a fancy toolbar that pops up whenever you do a search. Just like the iOS version, it brings a row of search results to the bottom of the screen, with previews for each. Unlike on the iPad, though, it doesn’t make any sense when a mouse is your primary method of interacting with the screen. You have to scroll a fair distance to do even the simplest things.
Axis has also seen a fairly rocky launch. The Terms of Service were blank for a while, it has crashed on many computers, the text completion system doesn’t seem as robust as Google’s, and the plugin brings even the fastest machines to a slog whenever you have more than a couple tabs open.
Axis isn’t much of a product launch and it is hardly going to save Yahoo. If Yahoo doesn’t do something to step up its game, they are going to die. This makes me feel that the company is spinning directionless. It leaves me with a humble plea for the company:
I used to love you, Yahoo. Please, please stop sucking.