Gravity Applications has released a native iPhone application to complement Searchlight, their remote search application based on Spotlight. Searchlight previously sported an iPhone-optimized web interface, and the native app builds on that. Some noteworthy benefits of the native app include storing logins for multiple servers, Bonjour discovery, and a speedier interface than Safari had provided. It also integrates a new feature found on the Searchlight server: the ability to send the files you locate to yourself or a third party via email.

The iPhone app is basic, but it provides a solid foundation for building a richer feature set as it develops, according to developer Niclas Bahn. We discussed some cool features already existing in some of the iPhone file management apps like FileMagnet and Briefcase (iTunes links), and he was excited about implementing some innovations of his own. It will be fun to watch it develop.

The Searchlight iPhone application is free, but requires Searchlight to be running on the computer you'd like search access to. Current users will want to upgrade their Searchlight server to the 2.1 release (the upgrade is free). If you weren't one of the lucky ten readers who got a free copy of Searchlight last time we mentioned it, and the $99 price tag was a bit too high, there's some good news: the price has dropped to $49USD. It may be a temporary price-drop, but it should last long enough for new users to take the demo for a spin and make an informed decision. Get it at Gravity's website, and happy searching!

• Ten licenses of Searchlight, the OS X and iPhone search tool
• Three copies of Bento, a personal database solution
• A big bag of goodies from Dr. Bott
• A Dymo DiscPainter
• 200 premium disc conversions from Ripstyles
• A bunch of games from Freeverse

Searchlight 2.0 was officially released last week. Searchlight offers remote Spotlight functionality, allowing you to search your computer's files via a web browser, and it includes an iPhone-optimized interface. I talked with Searchlight's authors, Gravity Applications, during WWDC and got a good look at the pre-release version which left me pretty impressed. I've personally been using the beta for a while now to access the Mac Mini at my house which serves as my central file repository. Read on for a Searchlight overview ... and an exclusive TUAW giveaway!

We gave Niclas and Martin from Gravity Applications a chance to talk about their latest (finished) project: Searchlight. It's an exciting application that provides a web interface to your system-wide Spotlight database, allowing any web browser on any platform (including your iPhone) to search, preview and download files from your computer. The chat was fun, but it got even more interesting after the camera stopped rolling and Niclas showed me their next project. I can't reveal it yet, but I can tell you that I've been excited about it ever since and -- because that's a terrible teaser -- I'll tell you that it's quite likely to be a huge step forward in solving some of my most perplexing organization conundrums. I promise to cover it thoroughly when it's released. In the meantime, here's the Gravity team elaborating on Searchlight and their first time at WWDC. Video after the jump.