Tiger Tips: Spotlight Tips

Huh? Works great for me. Just type in "fire" (which takes approximately 0.5 seconds longer than typing "fi") and Firefox appears right at the top of the list under Applications. Doesn't get much easier than that.

More subtle humor from Apple, ala iPod shuffle's fine print, available on the Spotlight Tips page (under "Spotlight 'date' Keywords"): "No, Spotlight isnt totally psychic about the files your colleagues will send someday. Rather, use next month, week and year for finding upcoming calendar appointments."

Maybe I don't get it, but why would you want to use Spotlight to launch an application? If I wanted to have to type something when I wanted to launch e.g. Safari, then I could use a Terminal window. A few keystrokes combined with tab (auto-complete) and my desired program is running. Weren't icons invented so that I could run a program without having to type?

Spotlight is nowhere near a replacement for an app launcher. I would have thought that was obvious. The problem in the Mac community of late is that we keep viewing everything Apple does as a measure to obsolete a 3rd party app. That may be true as regards things like Dashboard or the new iTunes status in iChat but it is in no way a fair comparison when speaking of Spotlight, Quicksilver, Launchbar or any of the dozen other application launchers. Spotlight is for search. It is a refinement of the ancient command-f. Quit thinking of it as a competitor to those other apps or as a do all answer that will solve world hunger and find your socks. And, keep in mind, every time you try to compare Quicksilver with Spotlight you denigrate both. Spotlight is a great search tool. Quicksilver is an application launcher but it is also a great many other things. Quicksilver is an app that acts a method for chaining together simple repetive commands with few keystrokes. Quicksilver is so much more than an application launcher and Spotlight is just barely an application launcher. Quit comparing Apples and 3rd parties. Quit expecting a technological revolution to be handed to you. Now that I have gone off on that rant I ask that you try to understand that has been building up for months. I don't direct this tirade at any individual and certainly not at tuaw (one of my favorite mac news sites). I'm just frustrated and tired of hearing these gripes when Apple doesn't read our collective mind.

I'm a little less than impressed with spotlight thus far, although maybe i'm too quick to judge. It seems a LOT slower than quicksilver and, like you said, more work. Was this their attempt to integrate a guicksilver-type launcher into Tiger? It just ain't as cool. Or as fun-ctional.