iOS 15 kicked things off for this year's WWDC keynote. It's not the biggest update for the mobile operating system to date, but it has quite a few noteworthy new additions.
12 of the most exciting new features in iOS 15
Spotlight
Spotlight search in iOS 15 includes Photos search with Live Text and several other improvements
Apple today during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote announced several noteworthy improvements to the system-wide search feature on the iPhone and iPad.
The new MacBook Air keyboard has dedicated keys for Spotlight, Dictation, DND and Emoji
Apple's just-refreshed MacBook Air with the new Apple M1 laptop chip that was announced yesterday features an updated media key layout in the function row, with the new shortcuts for Dictation, Spotlight and Do Not Disturb functions replacing the previous keys for adjusting brightness and invoking the Launchpad feature. Also, there's now a dedicated Emoji key.
Spotlightizer lets you personalize iOS’ Spotlight interface
I very seldom use my iPhone’s Spotlight interface for anything now that I can just use Siri to command almost anything I need. Nevertheless, the former still comes in handy when you want to find an app or perform basic math without using your voice.
Niche uses aside, Apple doesn’t provide any way of customizing the Spotlight user interface on a stock device, but jailbreakers can now take advantage of a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Spotlightizer by iOS developer 1di4r to bypass this seemingly unnecessary restriction.
Find things faster with these Spotlight search tips for Mac
When you need to find something on your Mac, you have the handy Spotlight search feature built right in. This convenient tool helps you locate documents, apps, and files as well as gives you suggestions if you so choose.
While Spotlight is super easy to use, you can do a lot more with it than you probably realize. You can narrow down your results quicker, get local information without much effort, and even do calculations.
For making the most of this cool tool, here are some Spotlight search tips for Mac.
Spotpower lets you respring your iOS device and more from Spotlight
After jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad, you might respring the device from time to time, as it can help you save changes made to jailbreak extensions in addition to other things. With that in mind, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a dedicated shortcut for respringing or performing other boot options in a pinch?
Those in agreeance may want to check out a newly-released and free jailbreak tweak called Spotpower by iOS developer Castyte, as it makes many of these essential functions more accessible to the common jailbreaker. Moreover, it implements these features into a familiar interface that many will use daily: Apple’s own Spotlight search.
Make iOS’ Spotlight search feature more powerful with LuxSit
iOS’ Spotlight search function is severely underpowered, and with just a bit more oomph, it could be a significantly more powerful tool for both casual and power users alike.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will ever expand upon Spotlight’s seemingly limited search functionalities in upcoming iterations of iOS or not, but in any case, jailbreakers won’t need to wait around for that to happen. With a newly-released and free jailbreak tweak called LuxSit by iOS developer LacertosusDeus, you can enjoy an upgraded Spotlight search experience today.
This tweak lets you reassign the native Spotlight/Today page gesture to something more useful
The Spotlight/Today page can be a wonderful thing, but not everybody uses it. With that in mind, iOS developer Oliver Crespo has created a new free jailbreak tweak called XB-SpotlightScroll that aims to increase the number of things you can do when invoking the gesture that’s typically used to access the Spotlight/Today page.
As it would seem, XB-SpotlightScroll can replace the native Spotlight/Today interface with any one of the following options:
LeadMeHome makes it easy to find apps on cluttered Home screens
Home screen setups vary from one person to the next, but if yours is more cluttered than most, then perhaps you could benefit from a new free jailbreak tweak release called LeadMeHome by iOS developer LonestarX.
LeadMeHome aims to help you find app icons on your Home screen more efficiently. Whether you want to launch, move, or delete the app in question, LeadMeHome saves you the time and hassle of searching several pages’ worth of app icons with a fine-toothed comb.
This tweak prevents Spotlight from remembering recent search queries
If you use Spotlight regularly, then you may be familiar with how the tool remembers your previous search query. Consequently, Spotlight users are then forced to clear the search bar before they can perform a new query.
Albeit a small inconvenience, a new free jailbreak tweak dubbed SpotClearOnClose by iOS developer Kiran Patil can put an end to these shenanigans and save you time the next time you go to use Spotlight search.
How to rebuild Spotlight index on your Mac
Spotlight, a system-wide macOS feature, allows you to find apps, documents, bookmarks, contacts, emails, items from third-party apps and more, from one central place on your Mac. In order to work properly, Spotlight relies on an indexed database of all the disks and files on your system that you haven't explicitly excluded from searching.
Apple swaps Bing for Google in Siri, iOS Search & macOS Spotlight
Apple officially announced today that it's replacing Microsoft's Bing with the Google search engine for Siri web searches and within Spotlight for iOS (now called Search) and Spotlight on Mac. Safari on iPhone, iPad and Mac already uses Google search as the default provider.