Apple Spotlight Search, now smarter, brighter and faster, coming to both OS X and iOS

Post by GUNASEKARAN E

At the WWDC 2014 event in San Franscisco, Apple made a number of announcements that were improvements to the iOS and OS X platforms. One of the things that was common to both the platforms was a much better and improved in-built search engine. Spotlight, as Apple calls it, is now smarter, brighter and faster.

On the iOS, the search can be accessed by swiping down from the home screen. As always, results start appearing as soon as you start typing. But what has changed is the content that appears. The new spotlight search now provides more useful information about the content. If you are trying to search for a movie, then it displays the showtimes in nearby theaters. It allows users to open apps a well.

The OS X counterpart takes after the popular productivity application – Alfred. The new spotlight now occupies the center of the screen, unlike the notification bar adjacent position on the previous iterations. The new spotlight comes up with a lot of information about whatever you are searching for. For example, if you are searching for a contact, it shows the contact card and also displays the email conversations with them if any. It returns Google search results for your other queries and also returns the Wikipedia page if available. It can also do more like convert units as shown below.