Spotlight Search in iPhone?

[MacRumors]

Gene Munster (via Appleinsider) believes that an iPhone software update due next year will add a system-wide search feature "similar to Spotlight on a Mac".

Munster, who tapped his own sources for the tidbit, says the feature will enable users to easily locate contacts, emails, phone numbers, or calendar events through a single search interface on the touch-screen handsets.

The new software update is said to arrive in February around the same time that the iPhone is opened to 3rd party applications.




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[yoman]

I find this feature to be one of the more essential features that was lacking in the iPhone's PDA capability. I'm glad it may come soon.

 

[kupua]

Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely slow apple.... come on step it up.

 

[Drewstin77]

we have this

if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can already enjoy this feature

 

[Telp]

if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can already enjoy this feature

Some of us wish to keep our phones in a virgin state. I dont care how great jailbreaking is and all the stuff you can do because of it. i cant wait till this happens, if its true...

Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely slow apple.... come on step it up.

It may be slow, but they have tons of other things on there mind than just the iPhone. They just released leopard, which was there main priority after the actual release of iPhone.

 

[dr_lha]

Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely slow apple.... come on step it up.

Have to agree, my Palm III in 1999 had a system wide search.

 

[matthewHUB]

nice, but february seems a long way away. Any chance of new firmware before Xmas??? When does that starbucks thing start anyway? Won't we need new firmware for that?

 

[Telp]

nice, but february seems a long way away. Any chance of new firmware before Xmas??? When does that starbucks thing start anyway? Won't we need new firmware for that?

Starbucks thing has started already, but right now its only in the major cities right now, and will take a little while to permeate into all the starbucks.

 

[Manatee]

Now there's a feature that pretty much every other similar device has had since day one.

I wonder how much deliberation Apple went through to decide if this would really be of use to its users. Given the paltry feature set of the initial iPhone release (and still), I guess they didn't think it was a big deal.

Seems to me they should add any OS X feature that could be equally applicable to the iPhone. Finder, Spotlight, Time Machine (wireless, of course), Desktop, iChat, real Mail, and others. Fortunately other developers will be able to supply the equivalent to all these things and much more next year.

 

[mikeytrend]

To anyone saying apple is slow on this situation.
That is true, but they could be waiting for a couple of reasons.
The first being maybe adding actual files to the phone and making it more of a computer than it already is, afterall we need some stuff to search for because calendars and contacts can be looked at easily already. Maybe adding like word/powerpoint documents to this.

Also, when apple does something they step it up a notch.
You're claming the "search" function on your devices,
for apple 9/10 times search doesn't cut it and you need a rapid solution
which was given the name spotlight.

 

[anti-microsoft]

I cannot belive apple hasn't added spotlight or copy/cut/paste funcions to the iPhone yet!! It' f*cking embarssing. I have an old (very old) Palm IIIc PDA. that does search, copy, paste and cut!! come on apple!!

 

[chr1s60]

This would be a cool feature, but I still think there are more important things for the iPhone to have. I do not complain about any new feature that Apple is willing to give us, but I do hope they will address the issue of copy/paste, MMS and iChat before February.

 

[Telp]

This would be a cool feature, but I still think there are more important things for the iPhone to have. I do not complain about any new feature that Apple is willing to give us, but I do hope they will address the issue of copy/paste, MMS and iChat before February.

I agree, although a coool feature, and i would welcome it for sure, it is not the most important in my eyes. I take solace in the fact that even if they dont release these things before the SDK, a lot of it will be with the SDK, which (hopefully) is only 2 and a half months away!!

 

[0098386]

I do like the sound of this. Hopefully it won't require a whole new iPhone, like searching on 5G iPods.

 

[lduncan]

Check out http://www.polarbearfarm.com ;-)

 

[Telp]

Check out http://www.polarbearfarm.com ;-)

I dont want to hack my phone, but cool. I know the hackers are way beyond apple (app wise) at this point. Still not hacking.

 

[bdj21ya]

This has no usefulness for me. But it sounds cool in a bullet list I suppose.

 

[devilot]

This would be a cool feature, but I still think there are more important things for the iPhone to have.

Seriously. Sigh.

I do not complain about any new feature that Apple is willing to give us, but I do hope they will address the issue of copy/paste, MMS and iChat before February.

Yeah, copy/paste would be nice, as would MMS and chat. But...

I just wanna be able to delete single texts and/or single call-log entries!

ARGH!

 

[bitslap47]

I would rather see Apple continue to stabilize and bullet proof the iPhone OS foundation instead of making shiny new applications.

Get the foundation solid, and I'll write the shiny new apps. If the foundation is shaky, my applications will look s$#%%y, when in fact the foundation is at fault.

At that point, Apple's true audience becomes the developers... a smaller more focused group. No need to invest in anything other than the foundation at this point... sit back in February and keep raking in money because of the applications I and other developers write.

 

[Project]

I would rather see Apple continue to stabilize and bullet proof the iPhone OS foundation instead of making shiny new applications.

They can't do both at the same time?

 

[bitslap47]

They can't do both at the same time?

Considering it is rumored that developers were pulled from Leopard to get the iPhone ready for launch, that they couldn't Launch Leopard on time, and that Leopard bug fixes have yet to materialize, my assumption is that they can't due to departmental bandwidth issues.

Maybe my assumption is incorrect.

 

[Telp]

This has no usefulness for me. But it sounds cool in a bullet list I suppose.

same here but a lot of people have a ton of phone numbers or emails or pictures or what not that just scrolling through is not as affective as it might be if they had less.