Spotlight on iOS 8 Spotlight

One of iOS’s simple yet powerful features, Spotlight lets you swiftly search your device for apps, contacts, songs, and more. In iOS 8, Spotlight has been supercharged with Spotlight Suggestions, which show online content in the results list.

Searching with Spotlight

While on the iOS Home screen, pull down from anywhere between the status bar and Dock.
Enter your search terms in the search box.
The results list appears ①. If you want to open an entry, tap it.

① Spotlight now has online content, including App Store, Wikipedia, and Bing search results.

New! Spotlight Suggestions

Spotlight Suggestions brings online content into your search results:

Apple media and apps: You can search the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store.
Bing: Spotlight uses Bing instead of Google for its Web search.
Movie showtimes: You can get local showtimes for movies (currently, in the United States only), along with Rotten Tomatoes ratings and MPAA rating (like PG or R).
Nearby places: You can search for local businesses, like restaurants.
News: Spotlight keeps track of hot news items and suggests them in search results ②.

② Spotlight can find news articles, Wikipedia entries, Bing search results, and more.

Web sites: Spotlight suggests popular Web sites based on your search.
Wikipedia: Spotlight recommends Wikipedia articles based on your search terms.

Note: In a country where English isn’t the primary language, Spotlight Suggestions may not be supported. Check Apple’s iOS 8 Feature Availability page.

What Else You Can Find

Apps: A common use for Spotlight is to find an app, instead of swiping through Home screen pages or digging through folders.
Calendar events: Can’t remember when an appointment is? If it’s in your calendar, within a year in the past or a year in the future, it’ll appear in a Spotlight search.
Contacts: Spotlight can search Contacts for names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and notes.
Email: Spotlight indexes the sender, recipient, and subject fields of all email messages in the Mail app for quick access.
Messages: Spotlight indexes all chats in the Messages app.
Music, audiobooks, podcasts, and videos: Spotlight can search by title, artist, and album.

Customizing Spotlight

Search device content only: Open Settings > General > Spotlight Search and turn off the Spotlight Suggestions switch.
Turn off certain searches: Also in the Settings > General > Spotlight Search screen, you can deselect any item that you don’t want cluttering up your results list.
Don’t share your location: To see Spotlight Suggestions but not send Apple or Bing your location, tap Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Tap System Services, then turn off Spotlight Suggestions. Your location won’t be revealed, but you’ll miss out on location-related results.

Re-order Your Results Lists

If you always like to see certain categories of results first, you can tell Spotlight to put them first in the results list. For example, you might want to see any found Applications first and any found Messages last.

Tap Settings > General > Spotlight Search and then drag the grab boxes at the right of the list items to change the order in which Spotlight reports results.

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