Just as people use “Kleenex” when talking about tissues, they’ve come to use “Google” when they mean search engine or online searching. While Google has been the dominant player in online search for decades now, it’s far from the only option available. As people become more concerned about online privacy and how their information is used, demand for a more privacy-conscious search experience has increased.
Enter Spotlight Search, the search engine available on Apple devices for nearly two decades. Over the years, Apple has adapted and upgraded its search engine, transforming it into a tool that could give Google a run for its money. Is it really worth all the hype, though? Let’s take a look!
Apple Spotlight is the search engine built into all Apple devices, including Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches. Spotlight is far from new. It was first introduced as a concept in 2004 and has been used on Apple products since then. If you’re an Apple user, you’ve probably searched with Spotlight many times without realizing it.
Initially, Spotlight was designed to search files, apps, and emails on an Apple device. It wasn’t a web-based search engine like Google. For that reason, Spotlight seemed to pose little threat to Google’s dominance in the search engine world.
That all changed when iOS 15 was announced. With the rollout of iOS 15 came some pretty significant upgrades to Spotlight, among them the ability to search the web on a local device, plus Siri-related features that deliver customized web results.
Now that Apple has a search engine, does Google have anything to fear? Let’s compare how the two stack up.
So how does Apple Spotlight compare to Google? The two search engines have notable differences regarding organic search and ad placement.
When you run a search on Google, you will get a mix of organic and paid search results (aka ads). That’s just a fact of life, and it has been for years now. Ads on Google aren’t necessarily bad, as they are a way for brands to raise awareness, get more leads, and boost sales.
Apple Spotlight is ad-free. Rather than ranking results based on how much an advertiser pays for a keyword, Spotlight ranks results based on how relevant they are to a user. It gets that information from the apps, files, and data stored on the particular device.
Regarding organic search, Apple’s search engine casts a wider net than Google. Google crawls the web, using a set of more than 200 ranking factors to rank each page it comes across. Apple Spotlight crawls the web and goes several steps further. It will also search your device’s files, videos, photos, text messages, and apps to find relevant results. As a result, you get more personalized results when you search with Spotlight versus Google.
For now (at least), Apple Spotlight is for Apple loyalists only. You need to use one of Apple’s devices to access the search engine. How you use the search engine depends on your device of choice.
If you’re accessing Spotlight on your desktop or laptop, you can open it by clicking on the magnifying glass icon on the menu bar, pressing Command + Space, or pressing the magnifying glass on your keyboard, if available.
Once you’ve opened the search engine, type in your search. As you type, suggestions will pop up, both from your computer and files and from the web. You can click on the suggestions to open the results or double-click a suggestion to open the item itself.
Accessing Spotlight on your iPhone or iPad is easy. Just tap the “search” button near the bottom of the homepage (on iOS 16). Once there, type in what you’re searching for, whether it’s an app, a song, or a TV show. Using Spotlight on your phone or tablet saves you the hassle of swiping through page after page when you want to open an app.
Rumors about Apple developing its own search engine that would truly rival Google have been circulating for years. While Spotlight Search has some advantages over Google, it will not bring down the search giant just yet. For one thing, Spotlight only works on Apple devices. There are plenty of users with Android or Windows phones or who use Chromebooks or PCs. And Spotlight doesn’t yet work on all Apple devices.
One area where Apple could easily beat Google if it were to continue developing Spotlight is privacy.
User privacy is a big deal at Apple. Its operating systems offer users multiple privacy features, including tracking prevention, email privacy, and app activity. The features prevent the use of tracking pixels and other data to keep tabs on users. With Spotlight, Apple doesn’t create individual user profiles like Google and other search engines do. There’s no digital paper trail of your searches, at least not outside your device.
Should Apple keep developing Spotlight (and the signs suggest that they will), it could become the search engine of choice for privacy-minded users. But with a full-service digital marketing agency on your side, you don’t have to go at these changes alone. Contact our team at Zero Gravity Marketing today to ensure you’re on top of all the best search engine practices as they happen.