Posted on 3 How To

How to Use Spotlight Search on iPhone and iPad

Since the introduction of the iPhone and iPad, I’ve always used it to navigate to any app, setting, or feature on my iPhone. When it comes to going to the iPhone to do any task on it, I always answer Spotlight searches. Once you get used to the Spotlight search feature on your iPhone, there’s no going back.

With the new iOS 16, Apple has further improved the Spotlight search feature on iPhone and iPad. Would you like to learn how to use the Spotlight feature on iPhone and iPad? Here’s how to get the most out of it!

Spotlight Search is included on the iPhone out of the box. You can swipe down on the home screen to access it. Or with iOS 16, Apple has given its place at the bottom of the home screen, and you can also visit the Spotlight search in the Today view.

For some reason, Apple doesn’t allow you to disable Spotlight search entirely. However, you can remove Siri Suggestions from the search. Here’s how:

  1. Open iPhone settings.
  2. Scroll down until you see Siri & Search.
  3. In the BEFORE SEARCH section, turn Show Suggestions on or off.
  4. In the APPLE CONTENT section, turn Show in Spotlight on or off.

What can you do with Spotlight on your iPhone and iPad?

While Spotlight has always been so useful, Apple has also improved the use cases for this feature by adding some new features in iOS 16, namely:

  1. Ability to search for images in applications.
  2. Take useful quick actions.
  3. Best rich results.
  4. Start being active.
  5. Siri suggestions are better.

While these new features are useful, here are ways to use them and some previous useful Spotlight search features.

1. Install, move and uninstall apps directly from Spotlight.

Now downloading apps has never been easier. You may be able to download the app directly from Spotlight search if you don’t have the app on your iPhone. This feature was introduced in iOS 16 and enhanced in iOS 16 to support more and better app searches and recommendations.

Prior to iOS 15, adding an app to the home screen was not possible. You can now drag an app from Spotlight search directly to your home screen without going to the App Library. Similarly, you can directly remove apps from Spotlight search.

The best Spotlight search feature I’ve experienced is the ability to search for text in photos using Live Text. This feature extracts text from your photos and helps you to copy, paste and take action based on the text present in the photo.

Spotlight Search indexes all text in your photos. Using this, you can search for photos from Spotlight Search directly. Let’s say you want to find a photo but don’t remember when you took it. However, you remember some of the words mentioned in the photo.

Open Spotlight search and type in the words you remember and voila! Spotlight Search offers you the same photo. This will come in handy in many situations.

3. Search on iPhone home screen

While my craving for the big-screen iPhone hasn’t waned, Apple has added a Spotlight search bar at the bottom of the screen to help us better use iPhone with one hand and increase accessibility. While it was now easy to swipe down anywhere on the screen to access Spotlight search, it’s now easier to access with a simple tap of your thumb.

4. Additional options for contacts

This time, the contacts screen has received a complete UI update. It provides contextual results such as your last call to this contact and your messages, as well as showing activity from other apps.

Now you will be able to directly contact the person through other applications – for example, send a message on WhatsApp. Spotlight Search even shows the person’s photos, if any, on your iPhone.

Clicking on the $ symbol will take you to the Messages app on iPhone. You can now directly pay for a contact using Apple Pay. Alternatively, you can use Apple Pay to directly pay for a contact from Spotlight Search.

5. Quick search for movies and series

Movie and TV show results are richer in iOS 16. Instead of searching Google for the TV show you want to watch and then searching the streaming service, you can directly search for the show in Spotlight search. iOS will take you to the streaming service page.

Search results also provide you with Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb ratings. Along with TV show and movie results, you can dive into search results for actors and other crew members.

6. Ability to search for images in applications

With the help of Apple’s neural engine on the Bionic chip and the algorithms that Apple has implemented in the new iOS 16, the user can now search for images in any application that contains an image library on the iPhone. In most cases, Spotlight uses information from images in messages, notes, and files to provide searches by location, people, scenes, or even images of objects such as text, a dog, or a car.

7. Access App Clips from Search Results

Spotlight on iPhone shows activities for businesses in Maps results. In addition to making a call, getting directions, and checking the time, if a business supports App Clips, you can now install an App Clip for that business in Spotlight Search Map results.

For example, a search might prompt you to open a restaurant menu, book a table, make an appointment, order takeout, join a waiting list, view show schedules, pay for parking, check prices, and more.

8. Find location, calendar event, files and more

Because Spotlight Search is integrated into every section of the iOS ecosystem, it makes the entire system searchable. Spotlight Search in iOS 16 is a lot like Spotlight on Mac and makes Spotlight Search “Google”of your phone.

You can search for documents in the Files app, search for a text message in the search bar, check your calendar, and more with Spotlight.

9. Take Helpful Quick Actions

Spotlight can now be used to perform quick actions on iPhone. It can quickly start timers, activate focus mode, shazam a song, or even run any of the built-in shortcuts. With this, Apple has made finding activities easier than you might think.

These tasks can be completed with a few taps. As simple as possible. This makes the execution of actions easier and faster. Another functionality that’s in the new iOS 16 is that you can search for the name of the app that shortcuts are assigned to, and your results will display all those app-related results.

Get active, like follow a sports game with Spotlight results! You read it right, you can find out the score of your favorite game happening in life; on the go, just enter the name of the game or league and you will get the results, these results are also constantly updated in real time, so you do not miss any updates.

How to Hide Siri Suggestions and Recent Searches in Spotlight

  1. Open iPhone settings.
  2. Scroll down until you see Siri & Search.
  3. In the BEFORE SEARCH section, turn off “Show Suggestions”and “Show Recent”.

Apple does not allow you to delete your Spotlight search history. If you were looking for something that brought you to Safari, you will have to remove the search from Google. Here’s how to remove Google searches and other activities on your iPhone.

Conclusion

Apple has certainly taken a big step forward with Spotlight search in iOS 16. Features like live search are a big step towards making Spotlight search more convenient, and I’m sure once you start using the new search Spotlight, you will be amazed at its capabilities.

Do you have another Spotlight search tip for us? Let us know in the comments section below!

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