Apple.com has new Spotlight interface for search

While it was hard to miss that Apple.com received a complete redesign with this week's WWDC events, the finer points of the site's new functionality are now coming into the, erm... spotlight. Eagle-eyed TUAW readers have been commenting and reporting on a number of interesting new enhancements to apple.com's abilities, such as the horizontal sub-navigation that Gruber mentioned on some of the product sites (try apple.com/mac to get an idea).
A really cool new (and long overdue) feature to searching Apple's site is more or less the web-based equivalent of the Spotlight interface. As you can see, the search box is pinned to the top right of ever page at apple.com now, and running a search produces near-instant results in a drop-down menu style interface. A 'View all search results' option at the bottom of that menu displays the page I snapped for this post, complete with a more robust and categorized list of search results that can be expanded and collapsed, helping you find just what you need far more quickly. The site even appears to be using cookies to store a recent list of your searches, keeping them always accessible at the far right of this search results page.
Altogether these are some very, very welcome new tools for searching Apple's exponentially growing product, information and support material. It should be noted, however, that the last update Apple made to their discussion forum still holds true, and that includes its own powerful search tools; this spotlight UI seems to apply only to the rest of apple.com.
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While it was hard to miss that Apple.com received a complete redesign with this week's WWDC events, the finer points of the site's new...
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what's the download for this apple?
June 17 2007 at 9:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replythink it's good that apple have updated their website etc but i'm not convinced some of their changes are for the better
i like the wide screen look though some pages don't seem to be as wide as they ought to be (some prolly cos they're still using the older narrower format others which have been updated are just as the menu bar at the top
i miss the tabs for the sub sections the most - was really easy to navigate
a bit too much of the javascript widgets and fx too
i like the site map like footer tho
That's a screenshot made by Skitch!
June 16 2007 at 3:49 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyStill update to Apple.com/UK
June 15 2007 at 5:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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