Spotlight

Spotlife hides Today widgets, brings back the iOS 9-style Spotlight page

While some people like using the Today page on the Home Screen, Lock screen, and in Notification Center, others don’t. It really comes down to whether or not you actually use any of your Today widgets.

If you find yourself missing the simplicity of the iOS 9 Spotlight page because you don’t use any Today widgets, then a new free jailbreak tweak called Spotlife by iOS developer pxcex could be a beneficial addition to your device.

Five neat tricks Spotlight search can do for you on iPhone

Bearing in mind the numerous ways to invoke Spotlight search on your iPhone today, the feature has clearly become a centerpiece of iOS 10th iteration.

That is because for one, it's the fastest way to rifle through your device for any type of information, however it is also incrementally adopting Siri-level intelligence. You might know about using Spotlight for swift currency and measurement conversions by now, but the list does not end here. Largely undiscussed on the web, here are five more cool uses for Spotlight.

This tweak removes the background mask effect from Spotlight search results

We recently showed you a tweak that can remove Spotlight search from your device entirely. On the other hand, if you do use Spotlight, but just wish there was more you could do with it to make the interface look better, then try this on for size…

A new free jailbreak tweak called No Spotlight BG Mask by Justin Petkovic is a minor aesthetic mod that simplifies the way your Spotlight search results look. It removes the background masks that normally appear out of the box, resulting in a new look.

NoSpot10 removes Spotlight search from your iPhone

If you never really use Spotlight, and it always ends up in your face when you don’t want it to be, then you might want to take a look a new free jailbreak tweak called NoSpot10 by CydiaGeek.

Installing this tweak lets you disable Spotlight in a system-wide manner, leaving you with simpler widget pages on the Home screen, Lock screen, and Notification Center.

NoTodayView disables the Spotlight widget page on the Home and Lock screens

NoTodayView is a new free jailbreak tweak for iOS 10 devices that can disable the Spotlight widget page on both the Home screen and Lock screen, which depending on how you use your device, can be very useful.

While most people like to use the Spotlight and widget page system that comes stock, it gets in the way when you try to use some other Home screen-modifying jailbreak tweaks like Mobius, which allow you to scroll infinitely through all of your Home screen pages and folders without coming to any dead-ends.

How to reveal a file’s path in Spotlight for Mac with a simple keystroke

In macOS versions up until Lion, hovering over an item in Spotlight's search results on your Mac would reveal its full file system path. As of macOS Lion, that's no longer the default behavior—the Spotlight overlay gives you some information about the selected file, but not its location. But don't you worry, Apple hasn't ditched this feature entirely as you can reveal a file's path in your Spotlight search results at any time via this practical keyboard shortcut.

iOS 10 tidbit: Spotlight Suggestions in Messages

On iOS 10, Spotlight Suggestions appear in more places than before. We recently told you about Spotlight Suggestions in the Look Up interface (formerly known as the Define feature). We also discussed iOS 10's expressive Messages app in depth and mentioned its super useful inline previews of URLs.

As it turns out, not only does Messages support inline previews of media URLs, but underlines specific terms in your chats—such as movie and app names—that Spotlight Suggestions can give you more info about.

iOS 10 tidbit: getting to Spotlight from any app, in an instant

Since installing iOS 10 Preview on my iPhone 6s I've been discovering these little gems that, in my personal opinion, will make this particular revision to Apple's mobile OS the most worthwhile upgrade yet.

Aside from major new headlining features, it's the little things that make our hearts sing. One of such subtle refinements is the ability to quickly get to Spotlight Search from any app.

Why I think Spotlight and Siri should be one

Ever since the rumors of Siri making its way to the Mac began gaining credence, I started thinking about how I would like to use the feature on OS X, and what it would mean for Siri on iOS. As I was toying around with the idea of Siri on my Mac, something became apparent very quickly: Siri and Spotlight Search have a lot in common. So much so that maybe it would make sense to merge then into one feature at some point. Let me explain.