Even as Apple embraces ai in iOS 18, it's working to improve users' ability to get answers in a more traditional way: through its Spotlight search characteristic. Accessed by swiping down in the center of the home screen, Spotlight Search already helps iPhone users discover things on their device and on the web, the latter as an alternative to using Google Search. Google. With iOS 18, Apple is making it easier for people to discover content within their apps using natural language (or “semantic”) queries.
Spotlight has already been able to search for content in developers' apps, but it only returned results when the search terms matched exactly. With the addition of semantic search capabilities this year, people will be able to search for content in apps using search terms that have a similar meaning, Apple told developers at WWDC 2024 this week.
With the Spotlight main frame, developers can donate content they want to be searchable through Spotlight, which is stored in a private index on users' devices that other apps can't access. With the new semantic capabilities, Spotlight's understanding of developers' content will be greatly improved, as users will be able to search for content within applications in their own way. These types of search queries leverage machine learning models that are downloaded to the device and run in the app process and can be uploaded or downloaded at any time, Apple said.
Additionally, as Spotlight search is used, developers can help improve their app's search result ranking over time by sending signals to Spotlight when an iPhone owner interacts with one of its results.
For example, if someone were searching for a particular local hiking trail, semantic search capabilities could find results related to the user's search query, using entities they understood such as the location of the trail or specific keywords, even if they didn't. were in The Name of the Path and were not exact matches. Additionally, the developer can set higher priorities for some of its content as needed. This allows them to do things like mark a tour that a user had saved as a favorite to rank higher in search results.
The end result is that the person searches for a given trail using a natural language query in Spotlight, finds the trail they want more easily through these enhanced results, and can then tap a result to go directly to the trail page in the section developer hiking trail. trails app. This update also helps Siri better understand the content of an app, Apple noted.
While not as exciting as an ai-powered Siri or ChatGPT integration, this type of internal update will provide an improved experience for iPhone users who turn to Spotlight to find information in their apps, or even for those who use Spotlight. as an alternative to web search.
