Spotlight

How to preview flight information and track flights on iPhone, iPad and Mac

Owners of an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Mac can quickly look up flight status information found in Notes, Messages, and Mail using a rich interface with flight trajectory, flight status, arrival times and other information.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to quickly preview the current status and other information pertaining to an airline and flight number, with or without leaving the context of what you're currently doing.

SpotlightBeGone lets you disable both Spotlight views in iOS 9

In iOS 9, Apple decided to allow users to be able to invoke Spotlight via two methods. The first method, the swipe down gesture on the Home screen, is the same invocation method employed in iOS 8. The second method, the swipe right on the first Home screen page, is a throwback gesture from older versions of iOS.

SpotlightBeGone is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to disable one, or both of the Spotlight gestures. If you're simply not a fan of Spotlight, or if you don't like a particular method for accessing it, then SpotlightBeGone is the tweak for you.

How to convert units and currencies with Spotlight on iPhone and iPad

Use conversion in iOS Spotlight Search

In addition to running simple math, Spotlight Search on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch also lets you run unit and currency conversions and get live exchange rates right from any Home Screen.

This convenient feature is another great time-saver provided by iOS, even more so if you resort to third-party apps for live currency conversions on the go.

With Spotlight, you can convert dollars to euros, feet to meters, pounds to kilograms, hectares to acres, Celsius to Fahrenheit, and much more. Let's show you how.

Shazam update brings support for iOS 9’s enhanced Spotlight Search and more

Shazam, the popular music and media identification software, has rolled out a brand new 9.0 update to its iPhone and iPad application in the App Store, bringing out support for Spotlight Search on iOS 9, improved Bluetooth listening and other tidbits.

Shazam songs and artists can now be searched from the Home screen on iOS 9 and tapping a Shazam result takes you directly into that content within Shazam's mobile app.

New in iOS 9: Spotlight can solve math problems

One of my favorite things about Spotlight and Alfred on OS X, is that both allow me to quickly churn out quick answers to simple math problems. Prior to iOS 9, Spotlight on iOS was extremely limited, but thanks to some major effort on the part of Spotlight's engineering team, the search feature is starting slowly creep towards its feature-rich big brother on Mac.

One detail that's been flying under the radar is Spotlight's new ability to solve simple math problems directly from the Spotlight interface. It's like having a calculator app that's readily accessible with just a simple swipe from the Home screen.

How to search within third-party apps using Spotlight on iOS 9

One of the biggest new features found in iOS 9 is the adoption of universal search. Universal search is a new feature that allows you to search for content within apps directly from Spotlight search.

On previous versions of iOS, searching was limited to the web and first party Apple apps pre-installed on iOS. For example, with older version of iOS you could search for contents within the Notes app, but couldn't do so for third-party note apps.

With iOS 9's new Spotlight search abilities, you can now search and discover content buried deep within the apps on your iPhone. It makes Spotlight feel truly useful and brand new.

Spotlight gets smarter in iOS 9

Spotlight search has been completely redesigned for iOS 9, and it brings with it a new interface, a new search API, deep linking to search results, and more. With an interface that harkens back to the pre-iOS 7 days, search is now a powerful new tool in iOS.

Applebot, a web crawler for Siri and Spotlight, unmasked in a support document

An official support document updated last evening has confirmed that Apple is using a web crawler service called Applebot to index the web for content used by its Siri personal digital assistant on iOS devices and built-in Spotlight search on both iOS and OS X.

An Apple-operated engine, Applebot is described as “the web crawler for Apple” which gathers useful content for products including Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. The document doesn't state how long AppleBot has been operational in production.

Twitter content and accounts coming soon to Spotlight search

According to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Twitter content such as tweets and accounts are coming to Apple's Spotlight search engine on Macs and iOS devices, allowing for an even tighter integration between the iPhone maker and the popular micro-blogging service, MacWorld reported Wednesday. Apple added Twitter to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad as the inaugural third-party service integration in iOS 5 three years ago.

Spotlight bug exposes your Mac’s IP address and more to spammers

An unusual oversight in how OS X's Spotlight feature handles privacy settings in Apple Mail leaves the door open to spammers, phishers and online tracking companies who can obtain private data such as your IP address, current operating system version, browser details and more, whenever an email message is previewed in Spotlight.

First discovered by German technology news site Heise, the bug takes advantage of a common information harvesting technique and a Mail setting which determines whether or not the program loads remote content in emails.

Liberate OS X’s Spotlight search with Flashlight

For years now, Alfred has been a staple of OS X workflow applications, enhancing search on the Mac and adding many features in the process. Spotlight search remained rather antiquated in comparison until Apple revived it with OS X Yosemite, but there's still much to be desired. While Alfred will continue to hold its well-deserved position as a staple Mac app, Flashlight has the potential to reach far beyond the abilities of Alfred to make OS X's native Spotlight search an incredibly powerful and useful tool.

Imagine using ⌘+SPACE as a text-based Siri, in which typing the phrase "remind me to Write Flashlight review at 2pm" or "text Mike I'm on Steam, wanna play?" will do exactly as expected. However, Flashlight not only allows reminders to be made and messages to be sent directly from Spotlight – its potential reaches much further.

How to turn Spotlight into a better application launcher

Searchlight is a jailbreak tweak that allows you to improve Spotlight in a few basic ways: it allows you to access the Spotlight search interface from anywhere, even while within an app, and it allows you to bolt on recent and favorite apps to the interface as well. If you're used to using application launchers on your desktop machine, then Searchlight might be a jailbreak tweak that fits nicely into your workflow.