OS X - Spotlight as a search engine: overlooked feature or revolution?
Spotlight is a built-in OS X feature allowing to search both your local computer and the Internet, your email, your instant messages, etc.
It's very helpful and I use it a lot, but I had overlooked its potential so far.
Spotlight can be used like a Web search engine with a click, without having to open your browser (see below figure).
Much needs to be done for it to compete with the search engines that dominate the market, such as Google, Microsoft's Bing, etc. but nonetheless it can be faster and more accurate.
The upcoming new OS X version, 10.11 aka El Capitan, promises to go this way and to improve the performance of Spotlight under this point of view.
Check me back when I got the chance for a test drive, hopefully in the next weeks.
In the meantime I love the fact I can perform a web search without even opening my browser.
Apple's long-time commitment to encryption of their customers' data (which has recently led to a standoff both with the government and law enforcement agencies) might supply larger benefits to individual citizens with regard to the their privacy than Google products can.
We'll stand and see.
Comments
Post a Comment