Spotlight - page 3

I can’t remember the last time I really used Spotlight on iOS. I guess it’s cool. It brings up some pertinent stuff that you search for, but it’s not really a precise tool you can use with pinpoint accuracy, so most of the time it just gets neglected on most iPhones.

My fingers haven’t really been aching for a iOS Spotlight overhaul, but after watching this concept video by Cody Sanfilippo, I’m starting to believe there are a lot of great possibilities Apple needs to explore by heavily integrating apps into Spotlight. Just watch the concept video below to see all the cool things Apple could do to make Spotlight in iOS 7 truly amazing.

It’s been a week since Apple released its first iOS 6 beta, and we’re still digging up new features. We reported some improvements to the keyboard this morning, and now we’ve found some enhancements to Spotlight and wallpaper settings.

Chances are if you do any kind of writing on your Mac, you’ll need a definition of a word from time to time, whether you’re writing for your job or writing for pleasure, writing an email or an anti-corporate screed for your blog.

There are many ways to get a word’s definition on your Mac, including the built-in dictionary app, using a site like Dictionary.com, or the like. Did you know, however, that the file index and search app, Spotlight, also allows you to find a definition super quick?

We’re all itching to see what iOS 6 has in store for our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, and we’re expecting Apple’s keynote address at WWDC next week to provide the first look at the new update. But the software could already be out in the wild. One YouTuber has published a three-minute video in which a purported iOS 6 beta is shown off for the first time.

Some of its features include new “iStore” and Dictionary apps, improvements to Spotlight search and the Maps app, enhancements to multitasking, and more.

Spotlight debuted in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, bringing a whole new way to find files and launch applications. In Mac OS X Lion, it resides in the top right corner of the Menubar, accessible from within any application via mouse or with the default hot key combination of Command-Space. You can find any indexed file on your Mac with Spotlight, and launch any App, as well. Today’s tip shows you how to do even more with Spotlight: copy files.

One of the best things about iOS is the search function. Whether you have too many apps like I do, use it as an app launcher in its own right, or just need to find a specific email or contact, Spotlight is the way to go. However, you might not ever need to search your devices calendar app, or you might not have any podcasts, audiobooks, or voice memos to search, either. If so, today’s tip is for you.

So you just bought yourself a new Android tablet, and you wish you’d gone for the iPad. Well, that’s too bad. But you’ll be pleased to hear that you can still get your hands on the iPad’s home screen, thanks to Espier Launcher HD.

Last week, we showed you how to make Spotlight work faster with a little reindexing trick in System Preferences. Today, we’ll do the same thing, only we’ll use some Terminal magic to make it happen.

Wondering how Spotlight works, or why it can’t find a file that you were SO SURE you had saved on your hard drive? Turns out that Spotlight is in essence an index of all the metadata from the files on your hard drive. When you type in a search query, the app searches the index, rather than the actual files on your hard drive. This is what makes it very fast in finding the info you are searching for. Unfortunately, that index itself can get out of date or corrupted, or can be deleted by mistake when restoring a hard drive, for example. Luckily, there are two ways to reindex, or rebuild, Spotlight’s database.

Devon Technologies offers up this free search app, EasyFind. They’re touting it as a free alternative or supplement to Spotlight, and say it’s faster and more responsive, especially when searching for text files. If you’ve used Spotlight lately, you know that it can have issues, especially due to the indexing feature, which may be out of date or corrupt.

Spotlight is a love it/hate it experience. Don’t stop reading if you hate it, however, because here’s a tip that shows how useful Spotlight can be if used correctly. A simple trick lets you search for emails or documents by a particular author, which can be extremely useful when trying to track down that elusive file or message.

Developers have already received several pre-release builds of Apple’s OS X Lion 10.7.3 software, and we had expected last week’s release to be the last one before the update goes public. But it seems there’s still some testing to be done. Apple has seeded yet another build to developers through the Mac Dec Center, this time with the build number 11D50.

Spotlight search on an iOS device is a fantastic feature. If, like me, you have pages and pages filled with apps, it’s easy to find the one you’re looking for simply by typing the first few letters of its name into Spotlight. You can do the same with songs, contacts, messages, emails, reminders, events, and lots, lots more.

However, there may be some things you don’t want to show in Spotlight. That doesn’t mean you should avoid the feature altogether — just customize its results to suit you. It’s incredibly easy, and not only will this remove items you don’t want to see, it’ll also make it faster to find what you’re looking for.

I’ve had a few friends experience a problem with their Spotlight search results after upgrading to Mac OS X Lion and at other times for other reasons. They claimed to search for items that they knew were somewhere on their computer, but Spotlight wasn’t able to find them in both cases.

Here’s a down and dirty fix for Spotlight that is useful when Spotlight seems to stop providing the results you expect. It is also useful when you just want Spotlight to re-index your system.

It’s been a long year. You deserve to treat yourself, and your Mac, to some beautiful new apps to make life easier. No one wants to spend $350 on an app shopping spree though, so we’re here to get you the hookup on 10 amazing apps while saving you a quantified butt-ton of money at the same time.

This week Cult of Mac Deals and StackSocial are bringing you ten apps to make your Mac driven life a thousand times better. We’ve scored you a deal to that saves 86% off the original price. 10 apps for $49 instead of the advertised $366?! This is the biggest deal we’ve had yet. Here’s a run down of the ten apps that are included in our Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle.

Spotlight, the search tool built into Mac OS X is extremely powerful if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize the true power of it, and therefore lose out on a lot of functionality. In this video I’ll show you how to use Spotlight to its full potential.

An iPhone 4 running a “test version” of iOS has been discovered by Vietnamese site tinhte.vn, and reveals a new Expose-like multitasking UI and a revamped Spotlight search function. Two videos published by the site demonstrate these new features, along with some pretty interesting hardware in the form a white, 64GB iPhone 4.

In this test version of iOS, double-tapping the home button displays your multitasking applications in a manner similar to that of Expose on your Mac. Instead of icons for the applications you have running – like you currently see in iOS 4 – you see a preview window for each application.

The iPhone Spotlight search feature has been improved yet again.

Universal Search, a jailbreak app from Efiko Software, takes searching with Spotlight to a whole new level. With this add-on installed, Spotlight can access mobile search sites and generate location-based results all from within the Spotlight search window.

Universal Search’s smart input monitoring allows the user to enter a phone number or url directly into Spotlight and options to call, text or visit the url pop up in the results. It also searches Google Maps and mobile sites directly rather than going through a search engine’s web results.

Search sites include Wikipedia, Google Maps, Twitter, CNN, ebay, IMDb, flickr, and ESPN.

Universal Search is available for $4.99 in the Cydia Store.